Che  South  Carolina 
Dispensary 


A  BRIEF  HISTORY  QF  T^yrji  jKAMOU§::f: 
EXPERIMENT  IN  ST.   ,  i.  CONTROL 
OF  THE  LIQUOR  TRAFFIC 


BY 


G.  THOMANN 


(78 
T455 


NEW  YORK 
UNITED   STATES  BREWERS'   ASSOCIATION 

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The  South  Carolina 
Dispensary 


A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE  FAMOUS 

EXPERIMENT  IN  STATE  CONTROL 

OF  THE  LIQUOR  TRAFFIC 


BY 


G.  THOMANN 


NEW    YORK 

UNITED    STATES    BREWERS'    ASSOCIATION 

1905 


THE 
SOUTH  CAROLINA    DISPENSARY  REPORT. 


Considered  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  political  economist, 
the  South  Carolina  State  Dispensary  must  be  classed  and  judged 
as  a  State  monopoly  of  that  fiscal  category  to  which  in  past  ages 
belonged  all  the  various  subjects  embraced  under  the  general  title 
of  "jura  regia; "  and  of  which  modern  history  offers  many  similar, 
though  not  strictly  analogous  illustrations,  such,  for  example,  as  the 
different  alcohol  monopolies,  and  the  tobacco  monopoly  which 
obtains  in  France  and  seven  other  European  countries. 

In  considering  the  South  Carolina  scheme,,  the  European  alcohol 
monopolies,  namely  those  now  in  force  in  Switzerland,  Russia  and 
the  Scandinavian  countries,  must  necessarily  be  taken  into  account, 
not  only  because  an  unbiased  comparison  between  these  institutions 
and  the  American  experiment  will  throw  a  flood  of  light  upon  the 
whole  subject,  but  also  and  more  particularly  because  in  our  country 
some  of  these  foreign  institutions  have  frequently  been  cited  as 
precedents  justifying  the  introduction  of  the  dispensary.  On 
several  occasions,  when  American  legislative  bodies  were  called 
upon  to  consider  the  advisability  of  introducing  the  Scandinavian 
company  scheme,  the  advocates  of  the  proposition  invariably 
claimed  that,  in  principle,  a  close  resemblance  existed  between  the 
South  Carolina  dispensary  and  the  Gothenburg  system  or  the  Swiss 
monopoly.  This  astounding  misstatement,  made  in  the  face  of  the 
fact  that  these  foreign  institutions  differ  from  the  dispensary  in 
regard  to  fundamental  principles  and  essential  details  of  execution, 
seems  to  have  gained  quite  as  much  popular  currency  and  credence 
as  the  equally  glaring  error  of  some  of  the  opponents  of  the  prop- 
osition who  condemn  all  these  European  methods  of  State  control 
on  account  of  their  alleged  socialistic  origin  and  the  indisputable 
socialistic  character  of  the  conditions  resulting  from  them. 

It  is  one  of  the  objects  of  this  essay  to  disprove  the  assertion 
that  a  close  resemblance  exists  between  the  South  Carolina  scheme 
on  the  one  hand,  and  the  Scandinavian,  Russian  or  Swiss  systems 


on  the  other.  As  to  the  socialistic  principle  involved  in  either 
scheme,  it  would  appear  to  be  a  waste  of  tiire  either  to  prove  or  to 
disprove  the  correctness  of  the  allegation.  State  socialism  is  not 
unknown  in  European  countries;  but  it  can  easily  be  demonstrated 
that  the  peculiar  control  of  the  whiskey  traffic  here  in  question 
never  formed  part  of  the  socialistic  programme  of  the  Russian,  the 
Swiss  or  the  Swedish  governments ;  nor  can  anything  even  remotely 
resembling  a  socialistic  motive,  sentiment  or  tendency  be  found  in 
the  legislative  debates,  governmental  inquiries  and  official  docu- 
ments which  preceded  and  upon  which  is  based  the  enactment  of  the 
Russian,  the  Swiss  and  the  Swedish  laws.  Nevertheless,  it  cannot 
be  denied  that  both  the  Gothenburg  system  and  the  Swiss  monopoly 
are  socialistic  in  their  ultimate  fiscal  effects;  but  that  does  not 
prove  anything  either  for  or  against  them.  In  judging  these  in- 
stitutions we  must  bear  in  mind  the  avowed  objects  for  which  they 
were  established  and  seek  to  determine  whether  these  objects  are 
good  and  whether  they  have  been  accomplished  by  the  means 
applied  to  them. 

The  same  reasoning  must  apply  to  the  South  Carolina  Dis- 
pensary. When,  in  the  year  1892,  the  dispensary  law  was  enacted, 
the  Populist  party  had  control  of  the  State  government  in  all  its 
branches.  In  no  State  of  the  Union,  not  excepting  Kansas,  had  the 
Populist  movement  grown  as  rapidly  as  in  South  Carolina  at  the 
time  we  treat  of,  and  it  continued  to  acquire  additional  power  from 
year  to  year,  until  in' 1895,  when  the  dispensary  law  was  re-enacted 
with  many  amendments,  the  legislature  had  become  almost  solidly 
Populistic,  being  composed  of  one  hundred  and  thirty-three  Popu- 
lists out  of  a  total  membership  of  one  hundred  and  sixty.  Al- 
though as  a  rule.  Populists  protest  vehemently  against  any  attempt 
to  class  them  as  Socialists,  it  is  nevertheless  true  that  a  striking 
concordance  of  postulates  exists  in  many  respects  between  the 
platforms  of  populism  and  those  of  American  socialism.  It  is  not 
intended  here  to  prove  anything  against  either  party  on  account  of 
this  identity  of  principles  and  demands.  Some  of  the  latter,  such, 
for  example,  as  national  ownership  of  telegraphs  and  railroads, 
graded  income-tax,  and  others,  are  embodied  in  the  laws  of  many 
monarchical  countries  and,  like  the  municipal  ownership  of  illumi- 
nating plants,  street  railways,  etc.,  have  been  in  full  force  and  effect 
long  before  socialism  assumed  the  character  of  a  political  issue 


upheld  by  a  political  party.  Excepting  the  fallacies  of  the  Silverites 
and  of  the  advocates  of  fiat  money,  the  socialistic  demands  formu' 
lated  by  the  People's  party  do  not  contain  anything  that  Populists 
need  be  ashamed  of,  and  their  protests  are,  therefore,  groundless 
as  well  as  unnecessary. 

What  we  desire  to  make  clear  is  that  the  dispensary  law  was 
enacted  when  the  legislative  and  executive  branches  of  the  State 
government  were  in  the  absolute  control  of  a  political  party  whose 
platform  derives  a  considerable  proportion  of  its  popularity  from 
an  infusion  of  socialistic  principles  and  tenets;  but  that,  notwith- 
standing this  fact,  the  dispensary  system,  although  socialistic  in  its 
ultimate  effects,  was  neither  intended  nor  openly  or  covertly  de- 
signed to  realize  any  avowed  socialistic  aim,  or  to  respond  to  any 
populistic  demand,  either  expressed  in  the  party's  platform  or 
voiced  on  the  hustings  or  in  the  press.  Socialism  as  an  economic 
question  or  issue  did  not  even  indirectly  enter  into  consideration; 
it  had  not  the  slightest  influence  upon  those  who  created  the  dis- 
pensary. Its  subsequent  injection  into  the  discussion  and  the 
recondite  disquisitions  upon  the  socialistic  features  of  the  dispensary, 
may  have  served  and  probably  did  serve  a  good  purpose.  It  cer- 
tainly did  not  lack  logical  justification,  but  it  only  tended  to  en- 
cumber the  subject  with  wholly  irrelevant  considerations,  when  it 
became  a  question  of  testing  the  dispensary  scheme  upon  its  merits 
as  a  reputed  temperance  measure.  With  the  elimination  of  this 
alien  feature,  a  comparison  of  the  dispensary  with  the  Russian, 
Swiss  and  Gothenburg  systems  becomes  an  easy  matter. 

In  Switzerland  and  in  the  Scandinavian  countries,  thoroughly 
scientific  inquiries  instituted  and  conducted  by,  or  under  control 
of,  the  government  led  to  the  general  conclusion  that  alcoholism, 
that  is  to  say,  the  physical  and  moral  maladies  resulting  from  the 
excessive  consumption  of  intoxicants,  can  successfully  be  remedied 
by  the  enactment  of  laws  discriminating  in  such  a  manner  between 
the  strong  distilled  and  the  mild  fermented  beverages  as  to  popu- 
larize the  latter,  making  them  the  common  drinks  of  the  mass  of  the 
people.  Incontestable  testimony,  based  upon  international  statis- 
tics of  alcoholism,  proved  the  greatest  prevalence  of  the  evil  in 
countries  where,  by  reason  of  unwise  legislation,  the  use  of  wine  or 
beer  had  been  superseded  by  the  general  consumption  of  ardent 
spirits.     On  the  other  hand,   these  data  showed  that  inebriety, 


6 

even  in  its  milder  forms,  did  not  prevail  to  any  alarming  extent  in 
countries  where  light  wines  of  domestic  growth  or  malt-liquors  had 
always  been  the  popular  drinks.  It  was  also  demonstrated  that  the 
evils  of  alcoholism  were  produced  not  alone  by  the  excessive  quan- 
tity of  spirits  consumed,  but  also  by  the  very  inferior  quality  of 
many  of  these  liquors — a  result,  in  part  only,  of  rural  distillation 
in  its  crudest  form  and  of  a  lack  of  rational  supervision. 

Many  other  important  factors,  besides  unwise  legislation,  con- 
tributed to  the  deplorable  state  of  affairs  which,  having  produced  a 
widespread  fear  of  race-degeneracy,  gave  rise  to  the  governmental 
investigations  here  referred  to;  but  even  these  factors — not  ex- 
cepting some  traceable  to  natural  causes — derived  their  destructive 
force  from  the  operation  of  unwise  laws.  Climate,  racial  traits 
and  temperament,  social  and  political  conditions  of  the  people, 
industrial  and  educational  development — these  are  some  of  the 
factors  which  had  to  be  taken  into  account ;  and  it  need  not  be  said 
that  in  respect  to  all  of  them  a  marked  dissimilarity  exists  between 
the  highly  enlightened,  polyglot  people  of  the  world's  model  re- 
public Switzerland,  now  at  the  very  zenith  of  industrial  and  educa- 
tional development,  and  the  down-trodden  people  of  autocratic 
Russia.  Yet,  with  all  these  differences,  the  all-important  con- 
clusion that  unwise  legislation  is  at  the  bottom  of  the  evil,  applies 
with  equal  force  to  both  countries,  as  well  as  to  Sweden.  A  single 
illustration  will  suffice  to  show  this.  The  climate  of  both  Sweden 
and  Russia  has  two  very  significant  effects,  viz:  it  predisposes  the 
people  to  the  excessive  consumption  of  alcoholics,  and,  excepting 
a  small  area  in  southern  Russia,  it  prevents  the  development  of 
viticulture.  On  the  other  hand,  the  inhabitants  of  Switzerland 
are  naturally  temperate  and  the  climate  of  their  country  favors 
viticulture  in  many  cantons;  besides,  the  little  republic  borders  on, 
and  maintains  close  commercial  relations  with,  the  three  greatest 
wine-producing  countries  in  the  world.  Yet  here,  where  under 
sane  and  natural  conditions  wine,  beer  and  cider  have  been  and 
should  still  be  the  drinks  of  the  people,  because  cheap  and  easily 
obtainable — as  in  Sweden  and  Russia,  where  beer, pivo,  mead,  quass 
and  other  similar  fermented  liquors  were  once  the  popular  beverages — 
pernicious  fiscal  legislation  drove  the  people  to  the  use  of  ardent 
spirits.  Summarizing  official  reports,  scientific  researches  and 
parliamentary  investigations,  the  present  chief  of  the  Swiss  alcohol 


monopoly,  in  one  of  his  public  addresses,  thus  describes  the  causes 
of  alcoholism  in  his  country,  viz. : 

"Former  legislation  was  irrational  in  two  respects.  On  the  one  hand, 
several  cantons  (and  among  them  the  very  cantons  which  have  neither 
viticulture  nor  brewing,  and  which,  so  far  as  viticulture  is  concerned,  could 
not  have  any,  on  account  of  climatic  conditions)  had,  by  the  imposition  of 
high  import  duties  upon  intoxicating  liquors,  either  closed  their  doors  against 
the  importation  of  wine  and  beer,  or  rendered  the  price  of  these  drinks  too 
high ;  so  that  in  either  case  the  effect  of  this  protective  tariff  was  at  first  the 
development  of  home  distilling,  which  is  not  dependent  upon  climatic  or 
other  conditions,  and  finally  the  overproduction  and  the  consequent  cheapen- 
ing of  ardent  spirits.  On  the  other  hand,  for  the  sake  of  administrative 
expediency,  th:i  retail  sale  of  whiskey,  especially  the  direct  sale  from  the 
distilleries,  had  not  been  fettered  by  any  very  effective  legal  restraints,  while 
fiscal  interests  had  demanded  that  all  possible  checks  be  imposed  upon  the 
sale  of  wine  and  beer.  The  outcome  of  these  circumstances,  in  connection 
with  others,  has  finally  been,  that  in  Switzerland  the  annual  consumption  of 
spirits,  calculated  in  pure  alcohol,  amounts  to  almost  5^  liters  or  transformed 
into  drink,  of  50  per  cent.,  11  liters  per  head.  I  will  not  take  up  time  by 
depicting  the  consequences  this  consumption  of  spirits  has  produced.  They 
are  the  same  in  almost  all  countries,  and  manifest  themselves  alike  in  all 
countries  and  in  the  same  directions." 

It  would  not  be  in  keeping  with  either  the  form  or  the  object 
of  this  brief  essay  to  dwell  at  length  upon  the  Russian  and  Swedish 
laws,  or  upon  the  conditions  to  which  they  were  applied  and  the 
state  of  things  they  produced ;  but  a  brief  summary  of  both  seems 
indispensable. 

The  ancient  Scandinavians  were,  doubtless,  a  race  of  hard 
drinkers;  even  their  m^^thology  abounds  in  evidences  of  this,  and 
the  moment  they  emerge  from  prehistoric  obscurity  into  the  light 
of  history  w^e  see  them  (as  we  see  their  German  cousins,  whom 
Tacitus  described)  as  a  chaste,  morally  clean,  physically  powerful 
race  of  men,  of  indomitable  will,  distinguished  alike  for  their  love  of 
freedom,  their  veneration  for  women,  their  frenzied  fury  in  battle 
and  their  strong  predilection  for  mead  or  beer.  It  is  barely  possible, 
but  not  likely — we  may  as  well  say  this  by  way  of  anticipating  our 
friends,  the  prohibitionists — that  the  latter  characteristic  may  in 
some  measure  account  both  for  the  "berserker  rage"  and  the  "furor 
teutonicus;"  but  even  if  it  were  true,  it  would  not  change  the  fact 
that  in  spite  of  occasional  bacchanal  excesses,  which  in  many 
instances  partook  of  the  nature  of  religious  rites,  drunkenness  was 
not  a  national  vice  of  the  Norsemen,  and  that  alcoholism  with  its 
degenerating  tendency  was  wholly  unknown.  The  nature  of  their 
drink  was  not  such  as  to  produce  this  evil ;  its  percentage  of  alcohol 
was  very  small  and,  considering  the  mode  of  life  and  the  astounding 


physique  of  the  ancient  Northmen,  it  will  readily  be  understood 
that  even  copious  libations  could  not  produce  such  an  effect.  It 
was  practically  the  same  beverage  of  which  many  centuries  later 
the  maids  of  honor  at  the  court  of  Queen  Elizabeth  consumed  from 
three  to  five  quarts  each  at  breakfast.  At  all  events,  history  and 
science  agree  that  alcoholism,  and  even  drunkenness  in  that  modern 
sense  of  the  term  which  conveys  the  idea  of  a  national  calamity 
accompanied  by  symptoms  of  physical  and  moral  decadence,  were 
unknown  before  the  introduction  of  distilled  liquor  as  a  beverage. 

In  Sweden  the  evil  reached  its  highest  point  when,  misled  by 
erroneous  economic  theories,  the  government  granted  to  every 
farmer  the  right  to  distil  and  subsequently  extended  this  privilege 
to  all  freeholders ;  the  unrestricted  right  to  distil  for  the  market  being 
reserved  to  rural  tavern-keepers  and,  singularly  enough,  to  the 
brewers  in  the  cities.  Distillation  being  regarded  as  an  economi- 
cally indispensable  adjunct  to  agriculture,  was  practised  by  every 
farmer;  and  it  is  said  that  in  1747  nearly  every  household  in  the 
land  had  its  private  still.  The  inevitable  result  of  these  unwise 
laws  had  become  so  glaringly  manifest  within  a  short  time  that  in 
1772  Gustavus  III,  actuated  alike  by  the  determination  to  raise 
revenue  and  a  desire  to  repress  the  flood  of  alcoholism  which  had 
inundated  the  country,  established  an  exclusive  crown  monopoly, 
so  rigid  in  its  provisions  (the  King  becoming  practically  the  only 
lawful  distiller)  that  it  led  to  widespread  discontent,  popular  up- 
risings and  an  almost  universal  resort  to  smuggling  and  moonshin- 
ing.  The  crown  then  farmed  out  the  right  to  distil  for  home  con- 
sumption, giving  rural  tavern-keepers  and  all  city  free-holders  the 
right  to  distil  for  the  market.  Again  the  same  horrible  results. 
For  a  time  every  conceivable  method  of  restriction,  except  the  most 
obviously  effective  one  of  national  taxation,  was  resorted  to  and 
nearly  every  session  of  the  national  legislature  brought  forth  new 
laws  designed  to  repress  the  evil;  but  the  popular  conviction  that 
the  right  to  distil  for  their  own  consumption  should  not,  against 
their  will  or  without  compensation,  be  wrested  from  those  who  had 
theretofore  exercised  it,  was  so  strong  and  deeply  rooted  as  to  bid 
defiance  to  the  reformatory  intentions  of  the  lawmakers. 

In  1829  there  were  still  172,043  distilleries  in  operation  in  the 
rural  districts,  and  the  per  capita  consumption  amounted  to  seven 
and  one-half  gallons.     At  about  this  time  the  turning  point  was 


reached.  The  ravages  of  alcohoHsm  had  assumed  the  form  of  a 
national  calamity,  and  innumerable  symptoms  indicated  a  rapid 
physical  and  mental  decadence,  particularly  noticeable  in  the  large 
proportion  of  young  men  found  unfit  for  military  service.  Dr. 
Huss,  by  his  admirable  writings  on  the  subject,  had  opened  the 
eyes  and  aroused  the  conscience  of  the  people  and  thus  set  in  motion 
a  counter-current  of  public  opinion  which  finally  led,  gradually  and 
by  slow  stages,  to  the  adoption  of  the  system  in  force  to-day.  The 
era  of  free  distillation  had  lasted  almost  one  hundred  years,  for  not 
until  i860  was  the  right  to  distil  for  home  consumption  entirely 
abolished. 

The  introduction  of  distillation  into  Russia,  which  took  place 
in  the  Sixteenth  century,  is  attributed  to  the  Genoese,  then  in  pos- 
session of  the  Crimea,  one  of  the  few  Russian  provinces  in  which 
viticulture  flourishes  to  a  comparatively  large  extent  at  the  present 
time.  Up  to  that  period,  a  number  of  fermented  beverages,  such 
as  mead,  pivo,  braga,  quass,  etc.,  constituted  the  principal  drink 
of  the  country.  Naturally  predisposed  (by  climate  and  tempera- 
ment, by  economic  and  social  environment)  to  the  excessive  in- 
dulgence of  the  craving  for  stimulants,  the  Russians  eagerly  seized 
upon  this  new,  powerfully  seductive  drink  and  soon  became  addicted 
to  its  use  to  an  extent  which  earned  for  their  country  the  unenviable 
appellation  of  "the  land  of  vodka."  The  delusive  name  aqua 
vitcB  was  accepted  literally  and  in  good  faith  by  the  great  mass  of  the 
people,  and  the  facility  with  which  the  drink  could  be  manufactured 
wherever  the  soil  yielded  grain,  the  ease  with  which  it  could  be  kept 
or  transported,  the  readiness  with  which  it  accommodated  itself  to  a 
crude  system  of  barter — all  these  advantages,  joined  to  a  rapacious 
fiscal  policy  which  encouraged  consumption,  not  covertly  or  in- 
sidiously, but  openly  and  systematically,  and  exploited  the  baccha- 
nal predilection  of  the  people,  produced  a  state  of  affairs  that  seems 
to  justify  the  sobriquet.  Much  of  this  must  be  ascribed  to  the 
shortsightedness  of  the  feudal  nobility  whose  seignioral  rights 
included  distilling  and  who  wielded  absolute  control  over  a  pliable 
people  living  in  predial  bondage.  But  the  real  root  of  the  evil  was 
the  imperial  policy  of  making  the  manufacture  and  sale  of  spirits 
as  prolific  a  source  of  revenue  as  the  unlimited  autocratic  power 
of  the  ruler  could  possibly  make  it.  This  was  accomplished  not  by 
a  tax-rate  sufficiently  high  to  yield  revenue  and  yet  restrict  the  con- 


10 

sumption,  but  by  a  system  avowedly  designed  to  increase  the  use  of 
ardent  spirits. 

This  system  was  in  the  nature  of  a  monopoly  of  the  crown, 
applied  either  directly  by  government  officials  or  indirectly 
through  the  agency  of  contractors  (farmers  general).  These  con- 
tracts were  given  to  the  highest  bidder,  who  sold  the  licenses  to 
sell  at  the  kabaks  (rum  shops)  to  traders.  Both  these  dispensing 
agents  could  be  depended  upon  to  make  the  most  of  their  bargain, 
and  historians  of  the  most  divergent  opinions,  in  other  respects, 
all  agree  that  the  serfs'  drinking  propensity  was  artfully  and  syste- 
matically stimulated  by  the  keepers  of  kabaks  to  an  extent  that 
must  seem  incredible  to  any  one  unfamiliar  with  Russian  affairs. 
But  even  if  these  agents  had  been  inclined  to  yield  to  conscientious 
scruples,  the  Government  took  care  that  they  should  not  succumb 
to  so  righteous  an  impulse.  The  contractors  were  subjected  to  the 
control  of  vice-governors  of  provinces  who  derived  a  proportional 
emolument  from  the  sale  of  spirits ;  hence  it  was  to  their  pecuniary 
advantage  to  use  all  possible  means  in  order  to  augment  the  con- 
sumption; and  in  this  respect  the  peculiar  institutions  of  Russia 
afforded  no  barrier  against  official  rapacity  and  private  cupidity. 
Increase  of  consumption  and  deterioration  of  quality  appear  to 
have  been  the  sole  objects  of  these  high  officials.  Both  Morewood 
and  Storch  relate  as  a  proof  of  this,  that  General  Kaptzevitch, 
■  governor  of  Tomsk,  deeming  the  output  of  the  governmental  dis- 
tilleries insufficient  for  his  pecuniary  wants,  ordered  that  the  officer 
in  charge  receive  a  certain  number  of  stripes,  if  the  quantity  of 
spirits  extracted  from  the  grain  were  not  more  than  double  the 
quantity  produced  under  the  administration  of  his  predecessor. 

Attempts  at  a  reformation  of  this  destructive  system  are  of 
very  recent  origin;  in  fact,  not  before  the  reign  of  the  present 
unfortunate  ruler  did  the  government  occupy  itself  with  the  hygienic 
and  moral  aspects  of  the  question. 

Having  thus  briefly  outlined  the  conditions  which  fairly 
clamored  for  radical  reforms,  we  will  quite  as  V)riefly  summarize 
the  basic  principles  of  the  monopolies  existing  to-day  in  these  three 
countries. 

Reversing  the  order  observed  in  the  foregoing,  we  begin  with 
Russia.  Alarmed  by  the  ravages  of  alcoholism,  the  government 
determined  to  use  the  alcohol  monopoly  as  a  partial  remedy  of  the 


11 

evil.  Instead  of  exploiting  the  monopoly  as  a  source  of  revenue 
the  productiveness  of  which  depended  largely  upon  the  systematic 
encouragement  of  consumption,  it  was  decided  to  use  it  as  a  means 
of  restricting  the  consumption  of  ardent  drinks.  It  is  still  a  revenue 
measure,  but  so  modified  and  adjusted  to  prevailing  conditions  as  to 
minimize  its  former  pernicious  effects.  It  is  no  longer  the  aim  of 
the  government  to  sell  as  much  "vodka"  as  possible,  but  rather  to 
restrict  its  use  and,  at  the  same  time,  to  secure  the  highest  attainable 
standard  of  purity  of  potable  spirits.  Laws  against  inebriety  go 
hand  in  hand  with  governmental  aid  to  temperance  efforts  and  with 
the  appropriation  of  a  considerable  proportion  of  the  alcohol- 
revenue  for  purposes  of  popular  entertainment  and  instruction  by 
means  of  concerts,  theatrical  performances,  reading-rooms,  libraries, 
etc. 

The  latest  Russian  monopoly  which  is  in  force  throughout  the 
country  since  1901,  is  designed,  to  use  the  words  of  the  law,  to 
"protect  the  people's  health  and  morality."  Neither  beer  nor  any 
other  fermented  beverages  are  included  in  this  restrictive  system. 

The  Scandinavian  laws  aim  primarily  at  an  almost  absolute 
governmental  control  of  the  quantity  and  quality  of  ardent  spirits 
designed  for  home  consumption.  The  retail  sale  of  distilled  liquors 
assumes  the  form  of  a  peculiar  monopoly  under  the  operation  of 
what  is  known  as  the  Gothenburg  law.  The  principal  features  of 
this  system  are:  I.  The  number  of  licenses  allowed  to  be  granted 
is  prescribed  by  law.  II.  The  right  to  sell  under  all  these  licenses 
is  sold  either  at  auction,  or  for  a  fixed  sum  to  retailing  companies, 
consisting  of  philanthropists.  III.  The  saloons  of  the  companies 
are  managed  by  salaried  officers,  who  are  forbidden  to  encourage 
the  guests  to  drink  ardent  spirits.  IV.  In  the  saloons,  beer,  tea, 
coffee,  and  solid  food  are  furnished  at  moderate  prices;  the  rooms 
are  airy,  well-furnished  and  provided  with  reading  matter,  pictures, 
flowers,  etc.  V.  Only  perfectly  pure  and  thoroughly  rectified 
spirits  are  offered  for  sale.  VI.  Malt  liquors  are  exempt  from  the 
restrictions  imposed  on  the  manufacture  and  sale  of  distilled  liquors, 
the  use  of  these  milder  beverages  as  substitutes  for  spirits  being 
thus  directly  and  indirectly  encouraged.  VII.  All  profits  arising 
from  the  sale  of  distilled  liquors  are  paid  into  the  municipal  treasury. 
VIII.  The  municipal  authorities  endeavor  to  ameliorate  the  con- 
dition of  the  laboring  people,  by  erecting  comfortable  dwellings  and 


12 

letting  them  at  a  low  rental,  and  by  such  other  means  as  may  be 
dictated  by  the  consideration  that  misery,  physical  want  and  social 
privation  constitute  a  potent  incentive  to  excessive  drinking. 

Under  the  Swiss  Alcohol-Monopoly  the  entire  production  of 
ardent  spirits  passes  through  the  government's  rectifying  establish- 
ments and  is  put  upon  the  market  in  a  state  of  absolute  purity,  and 
at  a  price  which  includes  cost  of  production,  plus  a  tax  so  rated 
as  to  act  as  a  considerable  restriction  upon  consumption.  Thus 
the  Government  practically  controls  the  quantity  and  the  quality 
placed  upon  the  .market.  In  addition  to  this  it  also  exercises  a 
restrictive  influence  upon  the  dispensers.  The  most  significant 
part  of  the  official  report  upon  which  the  monopoly  is  based  and 
which  has  since  then  become  the  fixed  policy  of  the  Federal  Govern- 
ment of  Switzerland  reads  as  follows : 

A  tax  upon  ardent  spirits  alone  ivill  not  accomplish  the  desired 
object;  in  order  to  he  fully  effective,  it  must  be  followed  by  a  systematic 
dim.inution  and  the  ultimate  abolition  of  taxes  upon  wholesome  beverages , 
such  as  beer,  wine,  cider. 

This  sentence  furnishes  the  key  to  the  situation  as  it  exists  in 
all  civilized  countries,  and  as  such  it  at  once  explains  and  illustrates 
both  the  cause  and  the  cure  of  alcoholism,  as  shown  in  the  light  of 
the  experiences  of  mankind  and  reflected  in  the  results  of  scientific 
and  governmental  investigations  throughout  the  world.  Any  other 
rational  and  successful  solution  of  the  drink  problem  appears  in- 
conceivable to  the  unbiased  student  of  the  question,  unless  it  be 
assumed  that  it  is  possible  to  eradicate,  by  some  mysterious  agency, 
the  craving  for  stimulants  which  science  has  long  since  recognized 
as  something  akin  to  instinct  and  found  to  exist  in  all  human  races 
known  to  history.  If  this  craving  cannot  be  eradicated — and  no 
sane  man  would  hold  that  it  can — the  best  method  of  reform  must 
be  the  one  that  substitutes  as  the  people's  drink  a  beverage  contain- 
ing 4%  for  one  containing  50%  of  alcohol. 

No  system  intended  to  remedy  or  counteract  the  evils  of  in- 
temperance can  be  judged  by  any  other  standard;  least  of  all  the 
South  Carolina  dispensary,  seeing  that  its  friends  and  its  foes  alike 
have  invited  and  challenged  a  comparison  of  it  with  the  European 
alcohol-monopolies  reviewed  in  these  pages. 

Fairness  exacts  the  statement  that  the  originator  of  the  dis- 
pensary, 'Senator  Tillman,  then  Governor  of  South  Carolina,  never 


13 

cited  these  foreign  monopolies  as  examples  of  his  own  scheme.  In 
fact,  in  the  message  to  the  legislature  in  which  he  first  rrentioned 
the  subject  (1892)  he  frankly  admitted  that  the  municipal  dis- 
pensary of  a  city  in  the  neighboring  State  of  Georgia  had  served  as 
his  model. 

As  to  the  political  origin  of  the  system,  Governor  Tillman  gave 
a  very  fair  cue  and  criterion  in  the  same  message,  when  he  stated 
that  the  Georgia  experiment  was  "pronounced  a  success  by  the  pro- 
hibitionists." To  one  unacquainted  with  the  political  situation  in 
South  Carolina  in  those  days,  this  reference  to  the  prohibitionists' 
alleged  approval  of  the  dispensary  might  seem  wholly  irrelevant, 
but  it  had  a  very  strong  bearing  upon  an  actual  issue  that  could  not 
be  ignored.  The  majority  of  the  legislature  was  composed  of 
adherents  of  the  People's  party  who  had  just  gained  the  ascend- 
ancy over  the  old  aristocratic  minority  that  ever  since  the  end  of  the 
carpet-bag  regime  had  ruled,  controlled  and  dominated  the  Demo- 
cratic party.  With  the  elimination  of  the  negro  vote  as  a  determin- 
ing factor  in  the  State's  politics,  the  struggle  in  every  campaign 
had  really  become  a  fight  between  the  patrician  and  the  plebeian. 
The  old  line  of  demarcation  between  the  slave-holding  aristocrat 
and  the  poor  white  still  existed,  but  with  this  difference,  that  since 
the  war  the  poor  whites  had  acquired,  in  small  parcels,  a  great  part 
of  the  land  formerly  held  by  a  comparatively  few  men,  and  had 
in  their  way  undertaken  the  task  of  rebuilding  the  shattered  for- 
tunes of  the  State. 

This  People's  party,  principally  composed  of  farmers,  was 
strongly  in  favor  of  prohibition  as  a  means  of  preventing  excesses 
on  the  part  of  the  colored  population.  Agriculture  being  the 
principal  pursuit  in  this  State,  a  vast  majority  of  the  people  live  in 
rural  districts,  and  as  the  colored  population  outnumber  the  whites 
throughout  the  State  and  particularly  in  these  farming  districts, 
this  party's  leaning  toward  prohibition  can  readily  be  understood, 
if  it  be  considered  from  its  own  point  of  view.  In  such  localities 
the  saloon,  as  it  exists  in  cities,  plays  but  an  insignificant  part  in  the 
drink  problem.  The  illicit  distiller,  the  itinerant  vendor  and  the 
country  store  supply  the  demand  for  whiskey,  and  they  supply  the 
drink,  such  as  it  is,  in  demijohn  or  bottle.  In  order  to  remedy  this 
evil,  local  option  had  been  resorted  to,  after  a  general  act  perempto- 
rily forbidding  the  issuance  of  licenses  in  rural  districts,  had  failed. 


14 

Local  option  failed  likewise,  as  it  always  does,  no  matter  what  the 
conditions  to  which  it  is  applied. 

The  discrimination  in  the  matter  of  licenses  between  incorpor- 
ated communities  and  the  country  districts  aggravated  the  antag- 
onism already  existing  between  the  urban  and  the  rural  population, ' 
and  Governor  Tillman  displayed  great  skill  and  adroitness  in  con- 
trasting the  benefits  which  accrued  to  the  cities  from  the  liquor- 
traffic  with  the  tax -burdens  that  had  to  be  borne  by  the  farmers 
who  enjoyed  no  such  counterbalancing  advantages.  All  this 
strengthened  the  party's  tendency  towards  State  prohibition;  in 
fact,  this  tendency  had  become  so  strong  that  as  early  as  1891  the 
House  passed  a  prohibitory  measure,  which  the  Senate  barely  suc- 
ceeded in  defeating.  Subsequently,  a  popular  vote  on  the  question 
resulted  in  a  decided  victory  for  the  prohibitionists,  although  this 
result  could  not  justly  be  claimed  as  reflecting  the  sentiments  of  a 
majority  of  the  people,  because  the  citizens  who  had  not  expressed 
any  opinion  on  the  subject  outnumbered, by  one  hundred  per  cent., 
the  majority  in  favor  of  prohibition.  Nevertheless,  a  majority  of 
the  members  of  the  legislature  were  pledged  to  prohibition ;  and  a 
prohibitory  law  would  undoubtedly  have  been  enacted  had  it  not 
been  for  the  fact  that  the  party,  by  a  plank  in  its  platform,  had 
committed  itself  unequivocally  to  a  reduction  of  taxes.  The  leaders, 
including  Governor  Tillman  (who  for  once,  at  least,  had  overshot 
his  mark)  readily  perceived  the  impossibility  of  realizing  both  ob- 
jects, and  therefore  determined  upon  sacrificing  prohibition.  The 
House  again  passed  a  prohibitory  bill,  but  the  Senate,  under  pres- 
sure of  the  Governor's  influence,  killed  it  and  passed  in  its  stead 
the  act  creating  the  State  dispensary,  which  the  House  adopted 
without  discussion  or  amendment. 

The  Act  created  a  State  Board  of  Control  with  power  to  appoint 
County  Boards  of  Control,  the  latter  being  empowered  to  establish 
rules  for  the  sale  of  liquors  in  their  respective  territory,  such  rules 
to  be  subject  to  the  approval  of  the  appointing  body.  This  power 
included  the  establishment  of  local  dispensaries  and  the  appoint- 
ment of  local  dispensers,  the  number  and  location  of  whom  were 
fixed  by  the  law.  The  purchase  of  all  distilled  and  fermented 
liquors  for  use  in  the  dispensaries  was  intrusted  to  a  Commissioner 
appointed  by  the  Governor;  and  all  dispensers  were  compelled  to 
purchase  their  supply  from  this  Commissioner,  who  was  enjoined 


15 

to  give  preference  in  his  purchases  to  distillers  and  brewers  doing 
business  in  the  State.  Brewers  and  distillers  could  not  sell  to  any 
person  within  the  State  except  the  State  Commissioner ;  and  even 
their  sales  to  purchasers  outside  the  State  had  to  be  certified.  The 
Commissioner  must  supply  liquors  to  dispensers  for  not  more  than 
50%  above  the  net  cost.  There  were  various  provisions  regulating 
the  mode  of  appointing  dispensers,  and  the  manner  of  selling 
liquors  to  the  consumer.  Sales  to  consumers  could  only  be  made^ 
upon  written  or  printed  application  bearing  the  signature  of  the 
purchaser  and  counter-signature  of  the  dispenser.  Sales  to  minors 
and  habitual  drunkards  were  forbidden.  All  liquor  packages  had 
to  be  sealed  and  provided  with  the  Commissioner's  certificate ;  they 
were  not  to  contain  less  than  one-half  pint  nor  more  than  five  gal- 
lons. The  consumption  of  liquors  upon  the  dispensers'  premises 
was  forbidden.  All  net  profits  of  the  dispensaries  were  to  be 
divided  equally  between  the  county  and  municipality,  the  dispens- 
ers acting  merely  as  official  agents  and  receiving  for  their  services 
a  compensation  fixed  by  the  State  Board.  So  far  as  the  estab- 
lishment of  dispensaries  was  concerned,  the  freeholders  of  the 
municipalities  exercised  the  right  of  what  might,  for  the  want  of  a 
better  term,  be  styled  an  indirect  veto,  inasmuch  as  no  dispenser 
could  be  appointed  unless  his  application  was  signed  by  a  majority 
of  the  freeholders.  The  act  also  forbade  the  importation  of  liquor 
into  the  State  except  upon  the  order  of  the  Commissioner.  For 
the  enforcement  of  the  law  the  Governor  was  empowered  to  or- 
ganize a  constabulary  force. 

The  law  went  into  effect  on  July  ist,  1893,  only  to  prove  its 
utter  ineffectiveness  in  the  face  of  the  open  antagonism  manifested 
in  all  the  municipalities,  the  discontent  of  the  defeated  prohibition- 
ists, the  impossibility  of  securing  the  conviction,  by  juries,  of  illicit 
sellers,  as  well  as  the  obvious  disinclination  on  the  part  of  the  local 
authorities  to  prevent  the  illicit  traffic,  or  to  assist  in  opening  and 
maintaining  dispensaries.  Adverse  judicial  decisions,  which  multi- 
plied very  rapidly,  augmented  the  difficulties  to  such  an  extent  that 
Governor  Tillman,  baffled  and  discomfited  at  every  point  in  spite 
of  his  almost  reckless  use  of  the  constabulary  force,  had  to  acknowl- 
edge his  inability  to  cope  with  them.  The  "blind  tiger"  reigned 
supreme,  and  during  the  interval  between  the  enactment  of  the  law 
and  its  first  amendment,  in  December,  1893,  the  traffic  flourished 


16 

practically  without  any  restraint,  and  neither  the  State  nor  the 
municipality  derived  any  revenue  from  it ;  for  the  small  proportion 
of  liquors  which  reached  the  consumer  through  the  official  channels 
had  yielded  no  profit  worth  mentioning. 

State  and  United  States  Courts  had  decided  against  the  law; 
the  former  on  various  grounds,  prominent  among  them  the  absence 
of  a  penal  clause  aimed  at  the  mere  selling  of  liquors;  the  latter 
courts,  on  the  ground  that  the  clause  forbidding  the  importation  of 
liquors  amounted  to  a  violation  of  the  Interstate  Commerce  Act. 
In  amending  the  law,  the  legislature  virtually  ignored  nearly  all 
legal  objections,  and  endeavored  to  overcome  the  difficulty  of  en- 
forcing the  monopoly  by  giving  to  the  Governor  absolute  power(i) 
to  increase  the  number,  strengthen  the  organization,  and  amplify 
the  coercive  functions  of  the  constabulary;  (2)  to  punish  recal- 
citrant municipalities  by  withholding  from  them  their  share  of 
profits  accruing  from  the  dispensary;  and  (3)  to  extend  the  dis- 
pensary system,  almost  at  will,  even  into  territory  where  the  people 
had   declared   for  prohibition. 

A  general  revision  of  the  penal  clauses  of  the  law  re- 
sulted in  the  adoption  of  amendments  so  changing  the  nature 
of  the  penalties  as  to  make  the  offenses  to  which  they  were  to 
be  applied  amenable  to  the  jurisdiction  of  trial  justices.  In  view 
of  the  fact  that  trial  justices  may  be  removed  from  office  by  the 
Governor,  the  object  of  this  amendment  could  not  be  misunderstood; 
but  if  there  had  been  any  doubt  about  it,  the  Governor's  letter  of 
instructions  to  these  justices  would  most  effectually  have  dispelled 
it.  In  this  document,  as  remarkable  for  its  rare  candor  as  it  is 
characteristic  of  the  whole  dispensary  movement,  trial  justices  are 
threatened  with  removal  unless  they  take  care  that  in  cases  where 
defendants  in  liquor  suits  demand  trial  by  jury  (to  which  under  a 
decision  of  the  Supreme  Court  they  were  entitled)  "no  names  are 
put  into  the  hat  (from  which  the  jurors  are  to  be  drawn)  except 
those  of  men  who  will  find  a  verdict  according  to  the  evidence,  and 
not  perjure  themselves  through  prejudice  against  the  law." 

In  preparing  himself  for  the  fierce  conflict  which  he  clearly  fore- 
saw, the  Governor  remodeled  the  constabulary  force  on  a  military 
basis  and  armed  the  men  accordingly.  He  then  proceeded  to  carry 
out  the  provisions  of  the  law  relating  to  recalcitrant  municipalities, 
and  at  the  same  time  instructed  the  constabulary  to  search  private 


17 

houses,  if  necessary,  in  their  endeavor  to  trace  the  illicit  traffic  to 
its  various  sources.  No  civilized  people  outside  of  Russia  would 
have  tolerated  such  an  autocratic  procedure,  and  Governor  Tillman 
might  have  known  (he  probably  did  know)  that  South  Carolinians 
would  not  tamely  submit  to  it.  A  state  of  intense  excitement 
prevailed  throughout  South  Carolina;  riots  occurred  in  several 
places,  notably  in  Darlington  where  an  armed  conflict  between 
citizens  and  constables  resulted  in  the  death  of  five  men  and  a  con- 
siderable number  of  other  casualties.  In  many  instances  the  of- 
ficers and  men  of  the  militia,  when  called  upon  by  the  Governor 
to  assist  the  constabulary  in  quelling  public  disturbances,  flatly 
refused  to  obey;  citizens  of  all  classes  gathered  in  public  meetings 
and,  roused  to  the  highest  pitch  of  indignation  by  inflammatory 
speeches,  adopted  insurrectionary  resolutions.  Everything,  in 
short,  seemed  to  indicate  the  outbreak  of  a  general  rebellion,  but 
Governor  Tillman  again  proved  himself  master  of  the  situation. 
Other  militia  companies,  either  because  their  rank  and  file  belonged 
to  the  dominant  party  or  because  they  were  less  jealous  than  their 
brothers-in-arms  of  the  civil  rights  and  personal  liberty  of  the  peo- 
ple, obeyed  the  Governor's  call,  thus  enabling  the  Executive  to 
mass  an  efficient  fighting  force  at  the  points  of  danger  and  to  hold 
in  reserve  at  the  seat  of  government  a  sufficient  number  of  armed 
men  to  meet  emergencies. 

At  this  highly  critical  moment  another  conflict  like  the  Dar- 
lington riot  would  inevitably  have  precipitated  a  civil  war,  a  minia- 
ture counterpart  of  the  whiskey  rebellion  which  forms  a  part  of  the 
history  of  Washington's  administration.  It  is  extremely  doubtful  that 
in  spite  of  Governor  Tillman's  martial  preparations  and  his  unmis- 
takable readiness  to  strike  in  full  force,  the  impending  danger  could 
have  been  turned  aside,  had  it  not  been  for  the  calm  and  dis- 
passionate attitude  of  those  leading  newspapers  whose  editors  were 
opposed  to  the  dispensary  law,  but  who  had  somehow  obtained 
information  to  the  effect  that  by  a  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court 
the  law  would  be  declared  unconstitutional  within  a  short  time. 
The  publication  of  this  information  acted  like  a  sedative  upon  the 
excited  people,  and  the  constabulary  force  remained  unmolested 
in  the  discharge  of  their  duty,  proceeding  for  a  time  less  ruthlessly 
under  the  sobering  effect  of  their  bloody  experiences  with  an  in- 
furiated people. 


18 

A  little  more  than  a  fortnight  after  the  Darlington  riot,  the 
Supreme  Court  of  the  State  rendered  two  decisions  in  rapid  suc- 
cession. One  decision  declared  the  unconstitutionality  of  the  dis- 
pensary law  on  the  ground  that  the  State  has  no  right  to  engage 
in  commercial  pursuits  and  that  a  monopoly  of  the  liquor  traffic 
by  the  State  cannot  be  justified  on  the  ground  that  it  is  a  legitimate 
exercise  of  the  police  power.  The  other  decision  outlawed  the  traffic 
entirely,  the  Court  holding  that  with  the  invalidation  of  the  dis- 
pensary law,  the  issuance  of  licenses  to  deal  in  intoxicating  liquors 
(other  than  those  provided  for  in  the  unconstitutional  dispensary 
law)  was  unlawful,  and  that  therefore  prohibition  must  prevail 
throughout  the  State. 

A  brief  era  of  "free  whiskey"  resulted  from  these  decisions. 
The  State  closed  the  dispensaries  and  thus  put  a  complete  stop  to 
the  legalized  sale;  but  the  illicit  traffic  flourished  without  any 
restraint  whatsoever,  because,  while  the  Governor  claimed  that  he 
had  neither  the  authority  nor  the  means  to  enforce  prohibition,  the 
municipal  authorities  tolerated  the  opening  of  the  old  saloons 
to  which  the  urban  population  had  been  accustomed  and  which 
they  regarded  as  far  preferable  to  the  Tillman  system.  The  official 
revenue  reports  throw  a  flood  of  light  upon  the  extent  of  the  traffic 
at  this  time.  In  the  whole  year  before  the  dispensary  law  went 
into  effect  (1892)  there  were  issued  by  the  U.  S.  Government,  1003 
retail  liquor-dealers'  licenses  in  the  State;  while  during  the  brief 
duration  of  the  lawless  interregnum,  the  revenue  office  issued  over 
eleven  hundred  and  eighteen  certificates  to  liquor-dealers,  of  which 
III  were  to  dealers  in  malt-liquors,  a  class  represented  by  but 
thirty-three  establishments  in  1892. 

It  is  difficult  to  surmise  what  the  motives  may  have  been  that 
prompted  Governor  Tillman's  remarkable  alacrity  in  complying 
with  the  Supreme  Court  decision ;  he  certainly  had  no  intention  of 
abandoning  his  dispensary  scheme,  as  subsequent  developments 
clearly  demonstrate.  While  allowing  things  to  drift  along  in  the 
condition  here  outlined,  he  prepared  himself  for  a  vigorous  appeal 
from  the  Supreme  Court's  decision  to  the  voters,  and  in  the  mean- 
time so  manipulated  his  party's  affairs  as  to  secure  the  election  of  a 
Populist  in  the  place  of  a  Supreme  Court  Judge  (inimical  to  the  dis- 
pensary) who  was  about  to  retire.  This  election  changed  the 
political  complexion  of  the  Court,  and.  being  sure  of  a  favorable 


19 

decision,  the  Governor,  after  delivering  a  number  of  public  addresses 
to  the  people,  issued  a  proclamation  practically  nullifying  the  ad- 
verse decision  on  the  ground  that  it  referred  exclusively  to  the  Act 
of  1892,  which  had  been  superseded  by  the  law  enacted  in  1893. 

He  knew,  of  course,  that  the  principle  which  rendered  invalid 
the  one  act,  also  invalidated  the  other  and  that  the  court,  con- 
stituted as  it  was  in  April,  1894,  would  also  have  declared  invalid 
the  amended  law.  He  neither  denied  nor  attempted  to  conceal 
the  fact  that  he  was  fully  aware  of  this ;  indeed,  in  his  subsequent 
message  he  characterized  the  decision  as  an  "outrage,  the  result  of 
partisan  bias,"  and  openly  admitted  that  he  "resolved  to  thwart  the 
court,"  and  to  rely  upon  "a  change  in  the  court"  for  a  reversal  of  the 
decision. 

A  less  courageous,  determined  and  self-reliant  man  than  Gover- 
nor Tillman  would  probably  have  waited  for  this  new  decision 
before  re-opening  the  dispensaries ;  but  as  such  a  course  would  have 
involved  the  disbandment  of  the  constabulary  force  and  caused 
serious  financial  embarassment,  the  Governor  took  the  "bull  by  the 
horns"  and  re-established  the  system  then  and  there.  Undaunted 
by  previous  riots  and  indifferent  to  the  popular  discontent  which  his 
revolutionary  methods,  particularly  his  defiance  of  the  law  courts 
had  engendered,  he  declared  his  determination  to  maintain  his 
outlawed  system  by  force  of  arms,  even  if  it  required  the  mobiliza- 
tion of  the  entire  military  force  of  the  State.  Fortunately  for  him 
and  for  the  State,  the  expected  decision  in  favor  of  the  dispensary 
was  rendered  within  a  few  months  after  the  proclamation  (October, 
1894),  and  the  dispensaries  were  thus  again  placed  upon  a  legal 
footing. 

In  January  of  the  following  year  (1895)  the  law  was  again 
amended  in  such  a  way  as  to  augment  the  autocratic  powers  of  the 
executive  in  many  respects.  Increase  of  the  police  force,  rigorous 
punitive  measures;  extension  of  the  system  and  multiplication  of 
dispensaries  as  a  means  of  fighting  the  "blind  tiger;"  change  of 
venue  in  liquor  suits  so  as  to  bring  delinquents  before  rural  juries; 
absolute  control  of  local  breweries  and  distilleries  by  a  system  of 
manufacturing  permits ;  introduction  of  a  spy-system  by  which  half 
of  the  proceeds  from  the  sale  of  confiscated  liquors  are  paid  to  the 
informer — these  and  some  other  changes  constituted  the  substance 
of  the  new  amendments. 


20 

Simultaneously  with  these  amendments,  the  legislature  en- 
acted a  law  completely  overthrowing  the  principles  of  municipal 
independence  and  home  rule.  This  measure,  known  as  the  metro- 
politan police  act,  empowers  the  Governor  and  two  other  State 
ofhcers  to  appoint  for  any  city  a  State  Commission  who,  supersed- 
ing the  local  authorities,  shall  have  full  control  of  police  regulations, 
with  power  to  appoint  as  many  temporary  policemen  as  they  may 
deem  necessary  for  the  proper  enforcement  of  the  law. 

In  the  same  year  (1895)  an  article  was  embodied  into  the  con- 
stitution of  the  State  which  empowers  the  legislature  to  deal  with 
the  drink-question  in  three  ways,  viz.:  i.  In  the  exercise  of  the 
police  power,  it  may  prohibit  the  manufacture  and  sale  of  alcoholic 
beverages ;  or,  2,  it  may  license  persons  or  corporations  to  make  and 
sell  liquor  under  such  rules  as  it  may  deem  proper;  or,  3,  it  may 
authorize  and  empower  State,  county  and  municipal  officers,  all  or 
either,  under  the  authority  and  in  the  name  of  the  State,  to  buy 
liquors  in  any  market  and  retail  them  within  the  State  in  such 
packages  and  quantities  and  under  such  rules  as  it  deems  expedient, 
provided  that  in  no  case  shall  licenses  be  granted  to  sell  alcoholic 
beverages  in  less  quantities  than  one-half  pint,  or  to  sell  them  between 
sundown  and  sunrise,  or  to  sell  them  to  he  drunk  on  the  premises.  The 
concluding  paragraph  of  this  article  provides  that  the  legislature 
shall  not  delegate  to  any  municipal  corporation  the  power  to  issue 
liquor  licenses. 

Subsequent  amendments  of  the  law  only  tend  to  render  effec- 
tive the  essential  provisions  summarized  in  the  foregoing  pages, 
and  it  is  therefore  deemed  unnecessary  to  go  into  details  at  this  point, 
more  especially  because  these  things  will  receive  due  attention  in  the 
course  of  our  narrative  whenever  necessary  to  a  clear  understanding 
of  the  matter. 

It  remains  to  be  said  that  by  virtue  of  an  act  passed  in  1899, 
the  net  income  derived  by  the  State  from  the  sale  of  liquors  must  be 
apportioned  among  the  counties  of  the  State  for  the  benefit  of  the 
public  schools,  in  proportion  to  the  number  of  pupils  attending. 

As  in  ordinary  commercial  ventures,  the  profits  are  of  a  two- 
fold character,  namely  the  profits  of  the  wholesaler  and  those  of 
the  retailer.  The  latter  must  be  divided  between  the  towns 
and  the  counties;  the  former  constitute  the  school  fund  as  pro- 
vided for  by  the  above  mentioned  law.     They  could  not  have  been 


21 

put  to  a  nobler  use,  for  South  Carolina  sorely  needs  a  better  public 
school-system,  the  percentage  of  illiteracy  being  13.6  among  the 
whites  and  52.8  among  the  colored  people,  according  to  the  Census 
of   1900. 

The  conflict  between  State  and  Federal  authorities  brought 
about  by  that  part  of  the  dispensary  law  which,  in  manifest  violation 
of  the  Interstate  Commerce  Act,  forbade  the  importation  of  liquors 
except  upon  the  order  of  the  State  Commissioner,  was  not  disposed 
of,  as  might  have  been  supposed,  by  the  judicial  decision  before 
referred  to.  Constables  continued  to  seize  liquor-packages  even 
in  the  hands  of  common  carriers,  and  harassed  the  "original  pack- 
age" dealers  to  a  considerable  extent  until,  in  1898,  Judge  Simonton 
issued  an  injunction  enjoining  the  State  officers  from  interfering 
with  the  delivery  and  sale,  in  original  packages,  of  liquors  brought 
into  the  State.  Under  this  injunction,  the  dealers  in  original  pack- 
ages obtained  a  perfectly  legal  status  which,  if  continued  for  any 
length  of  time,  would  in  all  likelihood  have  driven  the  State  out  of 
the  liquor  business;  but  a  Supreme  Court  decision,  rendered  in  the 
following  year,  changed  this  state  of  things  completely.  The 
Supreme  Court  then  held  that  the  purchaser  within  a  State  has  the 
constitutional  right  to  receive  packages  from  another  State  for  his 
oivn  use,  notwithstanding  that  there  be  State  laws  to  the  contrary, 
but  that  he  cannot  sell  in  the  original  packages  in  violation  of  such 
law. 

Singularly  enough,  even  this  extremely  favorable  inter- 
pretation of  the  Federal  law  does  not  appear  to  have  satisfied  the 
South  Carolina  authorities  in  charge  of  the  dispensary  system, 
probably  because  the  C.O.D.  shipments  to  private  consumers 
assumed  such  large  proportions  as  to  diminish  appreciably  the  flow 
of  official  revenue.  Within  less  than  two  years  after  the  last  men- 
tioned decision,  complaints  of  illegal  interference  on  the  part  of  the 
dispensary  officials  had  become  so  frequent,  that  Governor  Mc- 
Sweeney  felt  constrained  to  ask  the  advice  of  the  Attorney  General 
of  the  State.  Under  date  of  March  i6th,  1900,  this  officer  decided 
that  "the  mere  ordering  of  liquors  by  a  person  in  South  Carolina 
for  his  personal  use  from  another  State,  the  purchase  price  to  be 
collected  on  delivery,  does  not  constitute  a  sale  in  South  Carolina 
and  is  not  in  contravention  of  the  South  Carolina  laws  in  regard  to 
alcoholic  liquors." 


22 

In  order  to  complete  this  brief  recital  of  the  legal  aspect  of  the 
question,  it  is  necessary  to  quote  here  the  substance  of  a  decision, 
rendered  by  the  U.  S.  Court  of  Claims  on  the  29th  of  February,  1905 
— a  decision  which  will  be  frequently  referred  to  as  a  source  of  in- 
formation in  the  further  consideration  of  the  entire  subject.  Up  to 
1 901  the  State  had  paid  without  protest  the  U.  S.  special  taxes  im- 
posed by  the  internal  revenue  law  upon  all  wholesale  and  retail 
dealers.  In  that  year  the  Dispensary  Commissioner  suddenly  con- 
ceived the  singular  idea  that  the  Federal  government  cannot  law- 
fully tax  a  State  engaged  in  the  liquor-traffic  and  that,  consequently 
all  previous  payments  of  the  tax,  amounting  to  $22,840.71  during 
the  seven  years  which  had  elapsed  since  the  re-enactment  of  the 
dispensary  law,  had  been  exacted  illegally  and  should  be  refunded. 
The  gist  of  the  Court  of  Claims'  decision,  so  far  as  it  is  of  importance 
for  present  purposes,  lies  in  the  following  sentence:  "The  Court 
does  not  question  the  power  of  the  State  to  carry  on  this  business 
and  does  not  doubt  that  the  proceeds  of  the  business  lessen  the 
taxes  of  the  tax-payers.  All  that  it  decides  is  that  the  business  of 
the  dispensaries  was,  intrinsically,  business  and  not  government, 
and  being  business,  was  subject  to  the  same  national  tax  which  is 
borne  by  all  other  persons  engaged  in  the  same  business." 

The  critical  period  of  the  dispensary  ended,  as'we  have  seen,  in 
1898  when  the  Supreme  Court  decision  destroyed  the  original-pack- 
age trade  and  thus  restored  to  the  State  the  full,  unhampered  and 
absolute  control  of  the  traffic,  in  so  far  at  least  as  its  legal  pursuit 
was  concerned.  The  constabulary,  which  had  been  disbanded, 
was  at  once  reorganized  and  the  authorities  endeavored  by  all 
means  at  their  disposal  to  extirpate  the  illicit  sale  which  had  spread 
throughout  the  State,  coevally  with  the  legalized  original-package 
competition.  Changes  were  made  in  many  respects,  more  parti- 
cularly in  regard  to  the  method  of  control,  the  work  of  the  con- 
stabulary ;  the  prevention  of  peculation  and  embezzlement  on  the 
part  of  officials,  etc. ;  but  in  the  main  the  basic  principles  of  the 
system  remained  unchanged. 

The  key  to  the  whole  temperance  problem — i.e.  a  proper  dis- 
crimination between  fermented  drinks  and  distilled  liquors  played 
a  conspicious  part  at  about  that  period,  as  will  presently  be  demon- 
strated, and  led  to  a  modification  of  the  law  in  the  interest  of  tem- 
perance. 


23 

If  now,  having  all  the  requisite  material  before  him,  one  should 
attempt  to  describe  in  a  few  words  the  true  nature  of  the  dispen- 
sary-system, he  would  inevitably  become  intangled  in  a  series  of 
contradictory  statements,  which  would  require  explaining.  In  all 
probability  we  shall  not  escape  this  fate.  To  begin  with,  it  may  be 
repeated  that  the  dispensary  law  was  not  intended  as  a  socialistic 
experiment,  although  enacted  by  a  party  whose  platform  savors 
strongly  of  socialism.  Yet  in  its  effects  it  is  socialistic,  and  those 
are  very  near  to  the  truth  who  hold  that  if  the  State  has  the  right  to 
monopolize  the  sale,  it  may  also  monopolize  the  manufacture  of 
drink  and  pocket  the  profits  of  both  in  the  interest  of  the  taxpayers ; 
and  from  this  proposition  it  would  be  but  a  short  step  to  the  com- 
munistic idea  that  all  manufactures,  as  well  as  commerce,  should  be 
placed  into  the  hands  of  the  State.  This  phase  of  the  question  ought 
to  be  set  aside  entirely,  as  has  been  intimated  before. 

Now,  what  was  the  real  intention  of  the  lawmakers?  It  has 
been  shown  that  the  law  was  substituted,  in  the  rush  of  a  closing 
session,  for  a  rigorous  prohibitory  bill.  A  majority  of  the  law- 
makers, uninfluenced  by  partisan  considerations,  would  undoubt- 
edly have  voted  for  prohibition  which  in  reality  is  only  another  name 
for  "free  rum,"  but  which  these  legislators  regarded  as  a  genuine 
temperance  measure.  The  advocates  of  the  dispensary,  on  the 
other  hand,  claimed  that  the  cause  of  temperance,  of  public  morals 
and  public  health  would  be  best  subserved  by  a  monopoly  which 
would  at  once  curtail  the  consumption  of  intoxicants  and  increase 
the  public  revenues,  besides  offering  an  official  guarantee  of  the 
purity  of  spirits.  It  is  not  immaterial  which  one  of  these  considera- 
tions predominated,  but  it  is  inessential  for  our  purpose  to  inquire 
into  or  determine  the  correctness  or  falsity  of  the  oft-repeated  ac- 
cusation that  one  of  the  principal  objects  of  the  originators  and 
advocates  of  the  system  was  to  build  up  a  strong  political  machine 
for  partisan  purposes. 

Let  us  assume  that  the  dispensary  owes  its  existence  to  the 
three  first-mentioned  considerations  and  to  no  others,  and  then  let 
us  recapitulate  the  means  by  which  these  three  objects  are  to  be 
accomplished.  The  State  buys  all  intoxicants,  has  them  analyzed 
by  the  chemist  of  Columbia  College  as  to  their  purity,  then  sells 
them  through  the  dispensaries,  at  a  fixed  profit,  under  the  following 
restrictions,  viz. :     Liquors  must  be  sold  in  sealed  packages  bearing 


24 

the  State's  trademark  and  containing  no  less  than  one-half  pint 
nor  more  than  five  gallons,  not  to  be  consumed  upon  the  premises 
of  the  dispensary ;  only  one  such  sale  a  day  can  be  made  to  any  one 
person ;  all  sales  must  be  made  between  sunrise  and  sunset ;  liquors 
shall  not  be  sold  to  minors,  to  habitual  drunkards  nor  to  any  person 
not  known  to  the  dispensary  as  a  person  of  good  character  or 
vouched  for  as  such  by  a  reputable  person.  This  is  the  sum  and 
substance  of  the  scheme. 

The  essential  and  all-important  difference  between  it  and  the 
three  European  monopolies,  before  referred  to,  is  that  it  includes 
all  fermented  liquors  and  that  it  eliminates  the  saloon;  whereas 
these  foreign  monopolies  are  exclusively  confined  to  ardent  spirits 
and  foster  and  encourage  the  moderate  consumption  of  light  wines 
and  beers  under  rules  and  conditions  which  make  the  beer-garden, 
the  cafe  and  the  saloon,  conducted  as  a  place  of  recreation,  of 
rational  amusement  and  sociability  for  all  classes  of  the  people — 
men,  women  and  children — a  necessary  and  important  adjunct  to 
true  temperance. 

The  mere  elimination  of  the  saloon  does  not  necessarily  cause 
less  drinking  or  less  drunkenness  and  when  its  place  is  taken  by  a 
system  which  compels  the  drinker  to  buy  his  supply  of  liquors  in 
quantities  up  to  five  gallons  for  consumption  at  his  home,  and  by 
enhancing  the  price  and  the  inaccessibility  of  beer  actually  prevents 
the  mass  of  working  people  from  using  malt-liquors,  the  result  can- 
not possibly  be  in  favor  of  temperance. 

As  to  this  saloon-question,  the  author  of  the  universally  recog- 
nized standard  work  on  the  International  Statistics  of  Alcoholism, 
Dr.  Milliet,  Chief  of  the  Swiss  Alcohol  Monopoly,  summarizes  the 
official  information  furnished  him  by  the  governments  of  nearly  all 
civilized  countries  in  the  following  words,  viz.  : 

"We  find  that  the  temperance  movement  has  two  distinct  elements,  viz. : 
the  struggle  against  the  tavern  and  that  against  alcoholism.  By  alcoholism 
we  understand  the  evil  effects  on  individuals  and  society  of  an  immoderate 
use  of  intoxicating  liquors,  whereas  the  tavern  evil  is  only  a  specific  but  per- 
verted outgrowth  of  the  natural  craving  for  entertainment  and  society.  In 
direct  contradistinction  to  alcoholism,  it  may  exist  where  there  is  only 
moderate  drinking.  The  tavern  evil  certainly  leads  in  many  cases  to  the 
immoderate  use  of  alcohol,  and,  in  consequence,  to  the  disease  of  alcoholism; 
but  these  are  not  its  necessary,  and,  very  often,  not  its  actual  consequences. 
Alcoholism  can  be  produced  and  exist  independent  of  the  tavern,  and  vice 
versa.  It  is  clear  that  there  is  an  inevitable  connection  between  the  tavern 
and  the  tavern  evil,  but  the  relation  between  this  evil  and  the  number  of 
taverns  is  by  no  means  a  necessary  one.      It  is  a  matter  of  experience  that 


25 

one  tavern  may  cause  more  trouble  than  ten.  Still  less  intimate  is  the 
relation  between  alcoholism  and  the  tavern  on  the  one  hand  and  alcoholism 
and  the  number  of  taverns  on  the  other.  There  is  no  more  connection  than 
between  the  number  of  railroad  stations  and  the  amount  of  traffic,  or  the 
frequency  of  accidents.  Taverns,  like  the  stations,  are  so  various  in  char- 
acter and  influence  that  they  can  hardly  be  classed  together  as  a  whole,  and  to 
attempt  to  do  so  is  to  sacrihce  quale  to  quantum  in  an  unfair  and  inadmissible 
way.  As  traffic  utilizes  other  channels  besides  the  railroads,  so  the  tavern 
is  not  the  only  and,  in  many  cases,  not  the  principal  refuge  of  that  taste  for 
liquor  which  leads  to  alcoholism.  Suffice  it,  in  this  connection,  to  call  atten- 
tion to  the  fact  that  the  public  establishment  for  the  sale  of  liquor  plays  a 
different  role  in  the  town  and  in  the  country,  in  the  regions  where  wine  or 
brandy  is  produced  and  those  in  which  vineyards  and  distilleries  are  wanting, 
etc.  In  most  countries,  and  especially  in  Switzerland,  where  real  grogshops 
are  few,  brandy,  of  all  drinks  the  most  injurious,  and  which  leads  most  quickly 
and  surely  to  alcoholism,  does  most  harm  where  it  is  set  forth  by  the  private  host 
rather  than  the  public  landlord,  drunk  at  home  and  in  the  workshop  rather  than 
in  the  tavern. 

"The  tavern  cannot  well  be  investigated  statistically.  But  the  inter- 
national statistics  of  alcoholism,  by  their  contradictory  testimony,  go  to 
conflrm  what  has  been  said  above.  They  show  increase  in  the  number  of 
public  houses,  with  and  without  increase  of  the  consumption  of  liquor  and  of 
alcoholism ;  decrease  in  the  number  of  taverns,  with  and  without  decrease  of 
intemperance;  relatively  large  numbers  of  public  drinking  places,  with  rela- 
tively little  drinking,  and  vice  versa.  Where,  however,  a  reduction  of  the 
number  of  taverns  has  been  followed  by  a  decrease  of  alcoholism,  such  reduc- 
tion has  either  been  accompanied  by  other  important  measures,  or  has  been  so 
radical  as  to  partake  of  a  prohibitory  character." 

If  the  elimination  of  the  saloon  and  a  diminished  consumption 
of  intoxicants  could  be  shown  (even  in  the  abstract  and  without 
regard  to  the  nature  of  the  different  drinks)  to  bear  to  each  other 
the  relation  of  cause  and  effect,  the  dispensary  system  would  stand 
vindicated  as  an  effective  temperance  measure.  The  South  Caro- 
lina officials  actually  advance  this  claim,  but  they  have  failed  thus 
far,  to  produce  any  evidence  that  can  be  verified  statistically. 

We  have  proof,  as  will  presently  be  seen,  that  the  system 
not  only  reduced,  but  at  one  time  almost  completely  wiped 
out  the  consumption  of  malt-liquors  and  practically  destroyed  the 
greater  part  of  the  brewing  industry,  which  under  great  difficulties 
and  in  spite  of  a  combination  of  adverse  conditions,  had  just  begun 
to  gain  a  firm  foothold  in  the  State.  The  assertion  that  the  system 
has  greatly  reduced  the  consumption  of  liquors  and  consequently 
diminished  intemperance  could  not  be  made,  of  course,  without 
being  supported  by  some  seemingly  plausible  evidence,  but  this 
evidence  cannot  stand  the  test  of  an  impartial  statistical  scrutiny. 
Generally  speaking,  it  may  be  asserted,  without  fear  of  contra- 
diction, that  there  is  no  official  basis  of  comparison.  Neither  the 
U.  S.  Internal  Revenue  Office  nor  the  State  officials  have  any  mea,ns 


26 

of  determining  the  quantity  of  distilled  spirits  sold  legally  within 
the  borders  of  the  State  before  the  enactment  of  the  dispensary  law. 
Federal  revenue  statistics  serve  as  an  unquestionably  reliable  gauge 
of  the  quantity  of  distilled  liquors  lawfully  manufactured  in  South 
Carolina  distilleries ;  but  as  to  the  quantities  exported  from  or  im- 
ported into  the  State,  information,  even  were  it  only  in  the  nature 
of  an  official  estimate,  cannot  be  had  anywhere.  This  leaves  out  of 
consideration  entirely  the  quantities  of  liquors  made,  sold  and  con- 
sumed under  the  surreptitious  method  known  as  "moonshining." 
Hence,  even  if  it  be  assumed  that  the  extent  of  the  present  consump- 
tion, lawful  and  illicit,  could  be  ascertained  with  anything  like 
rnathematical  accuracy,  it  would  still  be  impossible  to  prove  that  the 
consumption  has  decreased  during  the  reign  of  the  dispensary 
system,  because  nobody  can  tell  how  much  liquor  was  consumed 
before  its  advent. 

A  perusal  of  the  official  dispensary  reports  will  disclose  the  fact 
that  the  profits  are  constantly  increasing,  which  proves  that  the 
official  sales  increase  from  year  to  year.  This  official  showing  in 
itself  would  flatly  contradict  the  assertion  as  to  a  diminished  con- 
sumption; but  it  will  be  found  in  these  same  reports  that  this  in- 
crease of  sales  is  construed  as  an  evidence,  not  of  "increased  con- 
sumption, but  of  a  more  rigid  enforcement  of  the  law." 

Statistical  proof  of  this  conclusion  would  be  convincing,  but  it 
is  not  given  nor  can  it  in  any  way  be  obtained.  At  all  events,  in 
whatever  way  it  may  be  explained,  there  remains  at  least  one  un- 
deniable fact,  vouched  for,  not  by  an  official  conclusion  more  or  less 
fanciful,  but  by  the  bare,  uncompromising  showing  of  the  State's 
balance-sheet,  namely,  the  fact  that  the  official  sales  of  whiskey 
increase  enormously.  Even  if  the  correctness  of  official  conclusions 
relative  to  increased  sales  and  a  simultaneous  diminution  of  con- 
sumption, be  admitted  hypothetically,  it  would  not  prove  that  the 
general  consumption — lawful  and  illegal — has  decreased,  nor  could 
it  by  any  mode  of  inferential  reasoning  be  construed  as  an  evidence 
that  the  evils  of  intemperance  have  been  lessened.  First  and 
above  all  things,  it  remains  to  be  considered  in  this  connection  that 
neither  from  the  official  records  of  the  State*  nor  from  any  other 
reliable  source  can  any  data  be  obtained  upon  which  may  be  based 
an  approximate  estimate  of  the  quantity  of  spirits  shipped  to  private 

*  See  report  of  the  State  Board  of  Directors  for  1003,  and  other  preceding  reports. 


27 

consumers  for  their  own  use.  This  quantity  must  be  very  large, 
for  there  always  existed  a  well-grounded  apprehension,  strengthened 
by  many  official  exposures  of  fraudulent  practices  on  the  part  of 
those  dispensary  officials  who  purchase  liquors,  that  quality  and 
purity  of  the  dispensary's  beverages  were  not  as  a  rule  the  determin- 
ing factors  in  awarding  contracts  for  furnishing  the  State's  supply  of 
intoxicants. 

In  addition  to  this  quantity  which,  although  not  a  part  of 
the  legal  traffic,  still  constitutes  a  very  considerable  but  statisti- 
cally unascertainable  proportion  of  the  lawful  consumption,  there 
remains  the  still  more  elusive  factor  of  the  illicit  trade.  Nearly 
every  gubernatorial  message  affords  ample  proof  not  only  of  the 
existence  of  this  unlawful  traffic,  but  likewise  of  the  State's  inability 
to  cope  with  it,  save  by  a  method  of  compromises  and  concessions 
as  humiliating  to  the  dignity  of  the  commonwealth  as  it  is  injuri- 
ous to  the  cause  of  temperance  which  the  dispensary  system  is 
avowedly  intended  to  promote.  In  many  instances,  some  of  which, 
singularly  enough,  occurred  in  prohibitory  territory,  the  dispensary 
succumbed  ingloriously  to  the  "blind  tiger"  and  unconditionally 
abandoned  the  field  to  the  illicit  traffic.  In  his  message  of  1899, 
Governor  Ellerbe  in  recommending  that  prohibition  counties  should 
not  receive  any  of  the  profits  of  the  dispensary  and  should  be  made 
to  bear  all  expenses  of  enforcing  the  prohibitory  law,  mentions  two 
examples — one  illustrating  our  contention,  and  both  extremely 
interesting  and  very  significant  in  more  respects  than  the  one  here 
referred  to. 

In  this  case  a  literal  quotation  appears  decidedly  preferable  to  a 
paraphrase.  This  part  of  the  message  reads  as  follows,  viz.:  "The 
county  of  Marlboro,  which  never  had  a  dispensary,  and  which  is  now 
under  the  most  rigid  form  of  prohibition,  with  no  possibility  of  legal 
liquor  traffic  within  its  borders,  receives  its  share  of  the  dispensary 
profits,  while  at  the  same  time  the  State  is  charged  with  maintaining 
constables  in  that  county  to  enforce  the  law  and  prevent  the  sale 
of  liquors.  The  same  thing  obtains  in  the  county  of  York,  where 
the  only  dispensary  has  been  discontinued  leaving  the  county  without 
any  place  where  liquor  can  be  legally  brought.  You  will  call  to 
mind  that  these  two  counties  are  close  to  the  North  Carolina  boundary, 
and  it  is  well  known  that  there  is  a  large  influx  of  whiskey  from  dis- 
tillers across  the  line,  by  wagons  and  other  conveyances." 


28 

In  the  legal  battle  before  the  Court  of  Claims,  whose  decision  has 
been  quoted  before,  the  counsel  of  the  United  States  offered  evidence 
to  show,  among  other  things,  that  the  dispensary  system  was  simply 
a  money -making  scheme  to  which  all  purely  moral  or  ethical  con- 
siderations are  ruthlessly  sacrificed;  and  that  "in  Columbia  there 
are  numerous  places  in  the  immediate  neighborhood  of  the  dis- 
pensaries *  *  *  where  liquor  is  sold  openly;  and  that  where 
the  keepers  of  drinking  saloons  purchase  from  the  dispensaries,  they 
are  not  prosecuted."  The  counsel  for  South  Carolina,  far  from  re- 
futing these  charges,  contended  that  "neither  the  violation  of  the 
law  by  individuals  nor  the  lax  administration  of  it  by  State  officers 
should  be  regarded  as  a  part  of  the  system  or  as  a  sufficient  rea- 
son why  the  exercise  of  the  police  power  should  be  denied  to  the 
State."  As  late  as  1903  Governor  McSweeney  referred  in  his 
message  to  the  illicit  sale  of  liquor  in  the  larger  cities,  stating  that 
these  "sales  will  continue  until  public  sentiment  changes,  and  that 
special  constables  can  accomplish  but  little  where  such  conditions 
exist." 

These  rather  copious  quotations  are  deemed  necessary  to  prove 
the  existence  of  an  extensive  and  widely  ramifying  illicit  traffic, 
either  running  alongside  of  the  official  sales  or  superseding  them, 
and  not  infrequently  connived  at  or  openly  tolerated  by  the  dis- 
pensary. The  volume  of  this  trade,  of  the  shipments  to  private 
consumers,  and  of  the  quantities  made  and  consumed  in  that  portion 
of  the  State,  known  as  the  "dark  corner,"  where  moonshining  has 
always  been  considered  a  perfectly  honorable  calling,  absolutely 
defy  computation  and  it  is  impossible  to  conceive  any  method  by 
which  the  dispensary  ofificials  could  possibly  substantiate  by  direct 
statistical  data  their  assertion  that  the  consumption  of  ardent 
spirits  and  intemperance  have  been  decreased. 

The  only  statistical  evidence  at  their  command  and  lavishly 
made  use  of,  consists  of  the  police  reports  giving  the  number  of 
arrests  for  drunkenness  and  disorderly  conduct  before  the  introduction 
of  the  dispensary,  and  during  periods  of  a  rigid  enforcement  of  the 
law  as  compared  with  periods  of  non-enforcement.  Before  con- 
sidering what  these  statistical  exhibits  really  prove,  it  may  not  be 
amiss  to  explain  why  some  investigators  pretend  to  doubt  the 
reliability  of  these  official  figures.  Ever  since  its  enactment  and  up  to 
1903,  the  dispensary  law  overshadowed  in  importance  every  other 


29 

political  issue;  it  was  the  foremost  question  in  every  campaign. 
In  his  message  of  1901  Governor  McSweeney  emphasizes  this  un- 
deniable fact  and  adds  that  "  the  law  has  been  more  strongly  opposed 
than  any  other,  and  that  every  argument  that  could  be  brought  to 
bear  against  it, has  been  presented  by  some  of  the  ablest  intellects  of 
the  State."  This  opposition  imposed  upon  the  dominant  party  the 
imperative  duty  of  presenting  counter-arguments,  and  inasmuch 
as  they  controlled  not  only  the  dispensary  machinery,  but  also  the 
entire  police  force  and  had  it  in  their  power,  under  the  metropolitan 
police  law,  to  supersede  the  municipal  authorities,  it  would  not  have 
been  a  difficult  matter  for  them  to  utilize  colorable  statistics  in 
such  a  manner  to  afford  advantageous  campaign  arguments. 

The  temptation  to  do  so  must  have  been  very  alluring,  con- 
sidered from  a  partisan  point  of  view,  in  any  case  where  the  metro- 
politan police  took  the  place  of  the  municipal  force.  It  is  for  this 
reason,  probably,  that  some  students  of  the  question  treat  these 
data  with  a  certain  degree  of  caution.  We  may  as  well  state  here, 
without  any  mental  reservation,  that  we  accept  these  statistical 
exhibits  at  their  face-value,  and  admit  that  they  show  a  decrease  in 
the  number  of  arrests  for  drunkenness.  We  cannot  accept  them, 
however,  nor  can  any  one  familiar  with  the  subject  of  alcoholism 
accept  them,  as  an  evidence  either  of  decreased  consumption  or  of 
diminished  intemperance.  They  prove  nothing  beyond  a  decrease, 
more  or  less  marked,  of  what  for  want  of  a  better  designation  may 
be  styled  public  inebriety.  It  would  indeed  be  an  astounding,  an 
almost  marvelous  thing  if  such  a  decrease  in  public  drunkenness 
were  not  easily  demonstrable.  Formerly  the  great  bulk  of  intoxi- 
cants was  consumed  in  public  houses,  exposed  to  public  observation 
and  subjected  to  public  surveillance.  Under  the  dispensary  system  the 
consumption  of  alcoholics  is  completely  divested  of  this  publicity  and 
driven  into  the  houses  of  the  consumers,  and  consequently  both  drinking 
and  drunkenness  are  screened  from  public  observation  by  the  privacy 
of  the  home.  The  people  who  indulge  to  excess  in  their  own  homes, 
will  go  to  bed  or  will  be  put  there  by  their  relatives ;  and  their  ex- 
cessive indulgence  cannot  under  any  circumstances  become  a  part 
of  the  statistics  of  inebriety.  Hence,  the  decrease  in  the  number  of 
arrests  for  drunkenness  is  a  perfectly  natural  and  logical  result  of 
the  system;  but  it  does  not  prove  that  there  is  less  drinking,  less 
drunkenness  or  a  greater  degree  of  general  sobriety.     In  fact,  the 


30 

opposite  is  probably  true,  for  according  to  official  testimony,  which 
will  be  cited  presently,  as  a  result  of  the  indiscriminate  application 
of  the  system  to  all  beverages,  the  poorer  people,  who  formerly 
v/ould  buy  beer  by  the  glass  and  pint,  were  compelled  to  give  up 
this  mild,  healthful  beverage,  being  unable  to  obtain  it  at  the  dis-* 
pensary  in  proper  condition  and  having  no  means  at  their  home  to 
keep  it  properly.  They  were  undoubtedly  driven  to  the  use  of  spirits. 
Thus  it  may  safely  be  said  that,  while  it  would  be  extremely  unfair 
to  the  dispensary  officials  to  cast  the  slightest  shadow  of  doubt 
upon  their  statistical  exhibits,  or  to  assume  that  for  partisan  pur- 
poses they  availed  themselves  of  the  colorability  of  such  data,  it 
would  be  unreasonable  and  wholly  unwarrantable  to  admit  the 
correctness  of  their  conclusion  relative  to  a  decrease  of  consumption 
or  a  diminution  of  intemperance. 

The  system  cannot  be  judged  by  such  data;  its  effects  will  be 
made  manifest  in  that  part  of  the  Federal  census  of  1910  which  will 
deal  with  the  question  of  alcoholism  in  all  its  various  phases  and 
aspects.  The  census  of  1900  cannot  afford  any  enlightenment  upon 
the  subject;  for  it  was  only  at  about  the  beginning  of  the  present 
century  that  the  system  could  be  placed  upon  a  solid  basis,  and  any 
test  of  its  merits  or  defects  should  begin  at  this  point.  Up  to  1898 
adverse  decisions  by  State  and  Federal  courts  created  a  condition 
of  things  which  prevented  a  fair  test,  and  the  popular  discontent, 
which  in  the  early  stages  of  the  experiment  led  to  open  revolts 
against  the  State  authorities  and  threatened  to  cause  a  civil  war, 
continued  for  a  long  time  to  make  itself  felt  in  a  number  of  ways 
calculated  to  hamper  the  work  of  the  dispensary.* 

While  judgment  as  to  the  general  effects  of  the  dispensary  must 
be  suspended  until  a  statistical  basis  of  comparison  can  be  estab- 
lished, a  consideration  of  the  result  of  the  system  so  far  as  the  con- 
sumption of  malt  liquors  is  concerned  need  not  be  postponed,  for, 
unfortunately,  the  most  convincing  evidence  can  be  gleaned  with 
equal  facility  from  the  Federal  revenue  reports  and  from  the  of- 
ficial statements  of  dispensary  officials.  As  has  already  been  stated, 
the  great  feature  that  vitalizes  the  European  monopolies  and  dif- 
ferentiates them  from  the  South  Carolina  method  consists  of  the 
systematic  encouragement  of  brewing  and  viticulture.     Both  beer 

*The  gubernatorial  campaign  of  1002  was  the  first  one  since  the  enactment  of  the  law  in 
which  the  dispensary  was  not  an  issue;  the  candidates  of  all  parties  being  then  for  the  first 
time  pledged  to  the  enforcement  of  the  law. 


31 

and  wine  are  excluded  from  the  restrictive  rule  applied  to  spirits, 
and  everything  within  the  power  of  the  government  is  done  to 
substitute  them  for  ardent  spirits  as  the  common  drink  of  the  people. 
In  every  country  where  the  drink-question  has  given  rise  to  serious 
apprehensions  as  to  the  future  physical  and  moral  welfare  of  the 
people  and  where  the  governments  have  co-operated  with  scientific 
societies  in  the  endeavor  to  find  a  rational  solution  of  the  problem, 
this  principle — so  aptly  and  tersely  formulated  in  the  Swiss  pro- 
gram quoted  in  these  pages — became  the  basis  of  liquor  legislation. 
This  policy  prevailed  in  our  own  country  until  the  advent  of 
the  system  of  indiscriminate  high  licenses,  and  no  sane  man  will 
deny  that  the  present  temperate  drinking  habits  of  the  American 
people,  which  must  appear  all  the  more  remarkable  when  com- 
pared with  the  condition  of  things  before  i860,  are  attributable 
largely,  if  not  exclusively,  to  this  policy. 

Climate  and  the  argicultural  occupation  and  mode  of  life  of  the 
great  mass  of  the  working  people  militated  strongly  against  the 
introduction  of  lager-beer  into  the  Southern  States,  but  both  the 
climate  and  the  soil  favored  viticulture  and  it  is  to  be  regretted 
that  these  natural  advantages  remained  unexploited.  True,  many 
efforts  were  made  in  Colonial  days  (and  subsequently)  to  introduce 
vineyards  into  the  Southern  section  of  our  country,  especially  into 
Virginia  and  the  Carolinas  (in  the  latter  by  Huguenots) ,  and  many 
eminent  men  actuated  by  moral  considerations  took  the  deepest 
interest  in  these  ventures.  But  here  again  unwise  laws  conspired 
with  other  unfavorable  conditions  to  frustrate  a  real  temperance 
measure.  It  is  a  well-known  fact  that  Thomas  Jefferson  strongly 
favored  viticulture;  his  famous  utterance  on  the  subject  fairly 
reflects  the  views  of  his  contemporaries:  "No  nation  is  drunken 
where  wine  is  cheap,  and  none  sober  where  the  dearness  of  wine 
substitutes  ardent  spirits  as  the  common  beverage.  It  is  in  truth 
the  only  antidote  to  the  bane  of  whiskey."  Dr.  Bowditch,  who 
cites  this  dictum  in  his  celebrated  essay  on  "Intemperance  in  the 
Light  of  Cosmic  laivs,"  adds  these  words:  "Probably  Mr.  Jefferson 
knew  little  or  nothing  of  lager-beer."  It  is  also  true  that  not  a  few 
attempts  were  made  in  early  Colonial  days  to  introduce  brewing, 
as  an  industrial  pursuit,  into  the  Southern  territory,  and  among 
these  the  most  remarkable  is  doubtless  that  of  Governor  Oglethorpe 
of  Georgia  who  established  breweries  in  order  to  change  the  drinking 


32 

habits  of  the  people,  being  convinced,  to  use  his  own  words,  that 
"  cheap  beer  is  the  only  means  to  keep  rum  out."  But  all  these  well 
meant  efforts  could  not  prevail  against  natural  impediments  and 
other  adverse  conditions. 

In  recent  years  viticultural  experiments  appear  to  have  been 
more  successful  in  the  Southern  States.  Individual  enterprise  in 
this  direction  probably  received  its  strongest  impetus  from  an  ap- 
preciation of  the  rapid  growth  and  profitable  development  of  the 
wine  industry  in  California  and  Ohio.  In  South  Carolina  where  the 
scuppernong,  a  very  fine  grape,  grows  in  luxuriant  abundance, 
these  experiments  succeeded  quite  well  on  a  smaller  scale.  But,  of 
course,  in  the  total  quantity  of  stimulants  required  to  supply  the 
State's  demand  for  stimulants,  the  produce  of  the  home  vineyards 
deserves  no  consideration ;  it  is  indeed  a  wholly  negligible  quantity 
in  any  statistical  exhibit  of  consumption. 

A  long  time  after  the  introduction  of  lager-beer  into  the  United 
States  (about  1845),  ^^e  brewing  industry  began  to  appear  in  a  few 
Southern  cities,  such  as  New  Orleans  for  instance,  where  a  slowly 
increasing  German  population  created  a  demand  for  beer;  but  it 
neither  gained  a  very  firm  foothold  nor  did  it  rise  to  noticeable 
industrial  proportions  anywhere  until  the  comparatively  recent 
development  of  artificial  refrigeration  furnished  the  Southern  brewer 
the  means  of  overcoming  the  climatic  difficulties  that  had  until  then 
seriously  handicapped  his  calling. 

Even  then  South  Carolina  offered  but  very  few  inducements  to 
the  industry.  The  Germans,  mostly  centered  in  Charleston, 
amounted  to  less  than  one-half  per  cent,  of  the  total  population; 
there  was  practically  no  industrial  class;  more  than  two-thirds  of 
the  entire  population  lived  in  rural  districts,  and  probably  more  than 
three-fourths  of  the  wage-earners  were  engaged  in  agricultural  pur- 
suits. Yet,  even  under  these  discouraging  circumstances,  brewing 
had  begun  to  prosper  on  a  scale  far  exceeding  the  measure  of  de- 
velopment which  could  reasonably  have  been  expected;  and  the 
shipments  of  beer  from  other  States  increased  quite  rapidly.  The 
beverage  grew  in  favor  the  more  people  realized  its  refreshing, 
stimulating  and  sustaining  effect  and  became  aware  of  the  fact  that 
while  the  drink  satisfied  the  craving  for  a  narcotic  stimulant,  it  was 
practically  non-intoxicating,  if  taken  in  moderate  quantities.  As  a 
result  of  this  growing  taste  for  beer,  we  find  the  municipal  authori- 


33 

ties  favoring  the  establishment  of  beer  saloons  by  discriminative 
license  rates. 

If  the  lawmakers  had  allowed  the  experiences  of  other  countries 
to  guide  them  in  their  efforts  to  create  a  monopoly  for  the  combined 
purposes  of  revenue  and  temperance,  they  would  have  taken  suitable 
measures  to  secure  the  continuance  of  these  saloons  where  beer  was 
being  sold  in  the  only  way  and  at  a  price  which  would  ultimately 
have  popularized  it  in  the  larger  urban  communities.  That  such  a 
course  would  have  been  a  temperance  measure  in  the  best  sense  of 
the  word,  was  fully  understood  then.  Even  the  dispensary  law  itself 
affords  strong  evidence  showing  that  the  physiological  and  moral 
eft'ects  of  fermented  beverages,  as  compared  with  those  of  distilled 
liquors,  were  not  wholly  ignored  by  the  legislators.  This  evidence 
lies  in  the  provision  permitting  any  person  to  make  wine  of  grapes 
or  other  fruits  for  personal  use.  In  the  rules  governing  the  dis- 
pensary we  find  a  similar  evidence  in  the  requirement  that  wines 
made  of  grapes  grown  within  the  State  shall  be  sold  at  a  nominal 
profit. 

Had  the  legislators  consulted  statistics  of  alcoholism  and  noted 
how  completely  the  drinking  habits  of  modern  peoples  have  been 
changed  in  the  direction  of  temperance  by  the  popularization  of  a 
drink  containing  but  four  per  cent,  of  alcohol  and  possessing  a 
dietetic  value  superior  to  that  of  any  other  stimulant,  they  might 
possibly  have  felt  it  to  be  their  duty  to  devise  arrangements  by 
which  the  method  of  dispensing  malt-liquors,  as  carried  on  in  the 
beer  saloons,  could  have  continued  under  the  general  supervision 
of  the  dispensary.  As  it  was,  the  enactment  of  the  dispensary  law 
drove  these  saloons  out  of  existence  at  once,  and  transferred  their 
trade  to  the  dispensary.  But,  as  we  shall  presently  see,  the  State 
naturally  regarded  the  sale  of  whiskey  as  being  in  every  way  more 
profitable  and  less  burdensome  than  the  dispensing  of  malt-liquors, 
and  acted  accordingly,  so  that  at  the  very  inception  of  the  system, 
the  most  serious  public  objections  urged  against  the  dispensary  was 
that  it  favored  spirits  at  the  expense  of  beer  and  thereby  promoted 
inebriety. 

Under  normal  conditions,  severe  restrictions  placed  alike  upon 
beer  and  upon  whiskey  will  inevitably  work  to  the  detriment  of  the 
former,  without  materially  affecting  the  consumption  of  the  latter 
drink,  because  the  illicit  traffic  absorbs  any  quantity  of  ardent 


34 

spirits  and  readily  eludes  detection;  while  beer  cannot  be  sold 
unlawfully  for  reasons  which  it  is  needless  to  explain  here.  In  the 
case  of  the  dispensary,  these  unequal  effects  of  the  same  cause  were 
so  striking  as  to  provoke  criticism  of  the  law  even  on  the  part  of  some 
of  the  officials  who  were  charged  with  its  execution.  And  these 
effects  were  particularly  severe  upon  the  brewers  who  lost  practically 
all  their  customers  on  the  day  on  which  the  saloons  were  closed,  and 
would  necessarily  have  been  compelled  to  suspend  operations.  This 
total  destruction  of  a  home  industry  would  have  been  very  embar- 
rassing to  the  dispensary  officials  whom  the  law  required  to  purchase 
beer  made  in  South  Carolina  in  preference  to  imported  malt-liquors ; 
the  manifest  intention  being,  in  this  case  as  in  that  of  home-made 
whiskey  and  wine,  not  to  sacrifice  home  industries  for  the  benefit 
of  the  industries  of  other  States. 

It  was,  doubtless,  this  consideration  that  suggested  the  ex- 
pedient, first  resorted  to  during  the  critical  period  of  the  dispensary, 
of  allowing  home  brewers  to  sell  directly  to  their  private  customers 
on  the  condition  that  they  pay  a  fixed  royalty  to  the  State.  It 
proved  a  paltry  makeshift  in  the  face  of  the  swelling  tide  of  free 
whiskey  and  the  State's  frantic  efforts  to  compete  with,  and  hold  its 
own  against, the  "blind  tiger"  and  the  legalized  "original  package" 
trade. 

The  rapid  decline  of  the  beer  industry,  the  manifest  unwilling- 
ness or  inability  of  the  dispensaries  to  supply  the  demand  for  beer 
in  the  form  and  condition  and  at  a  price  which  the  nature  of  the 
drink  and  the  needs  of  the  consumer  demanded,  soon  gave  rise,  as 
we  have  intimated  before,  to  much  discontent  both  among  the  beer- 
drinkers  and  that  large  class  of  broad-minded  citizens  who  looked 
upon  fermented  liquors  in  general  in  precisely  the  same  way  in  which 
Thomas  Jefferson  looked  upon  wine.  All  these  circumstances  had 
a  tendency  to  strengthen  the  conviction  that,  in  the  interests  of  tem- 
perance, some  discrimination  should  be  made  in  favor  of  beer;  and  in 
deference  to  public  opinion  the  royalty  system  was  resorted  to  and 
considerably  extended.  The  amended  law  empowered  the  State 
Board  to  permit  the  establishment  of  beer  dispensaries  for  the 
bottling  and  sale  of  beer  "to  be  operated  as  prescribed  by  law." 
This  law  applied  only  to  cities  of  over  20,000  inhabitants,  of  which 
there  are  only  two,  namely  Charleston  and  Columbia. 

The  consumers'  objections  to  the  beer  sold  in  the  ordinary  dis- 


35 

pensaries  were  entirely  justified  and  the  authorities  themselves 
admitted  their  validity.  These  beers  after  having  been  subjected 
to  pasteurization,  passed  through  several  hands  before  they  reached 
the  dispensers.  Carelessly  handled  at  every  stage,  frequently  ex- 
posed to  the  intense  heat  of  the  Southern  climate,  they  finally  found 
storage  in  a  place  exposed  to  varying  degrees  of  temperature,  re- 
ceived no  care  whatever,  and  were  ultimately  handed  over  to  the 
consumer  at  an  exceedingly  high  price  and  in  the  worst  possible 
condition. 

Under  the  terms  of  the  amended  law,  as  construed  by  the  At- 
torney General,  the  county  boards  had  the  power  to  establish  local 
dispensaries  for  the  exclusive  sale  of  beer.  And  of  this  power  many 
boards  made  an  excellent  use. 

The  new  beer  dispensaries  received  permission  to  bottle  and  sell 
fresh  beer  on  payment  of  a  royalty,  but  they  could  not  sell  for  con- 
sumption upon  the  premises.  Although  a  concession  calculated  to 
satisfy  the  beer-drinker  who  can  afford  to  purchase  his  supply  of 
beer  and  keep  it  in  good  condition  at  his  home,  this  expedient — a 
precarious  makeshift  at  best — could  not  possibly  fill  the  want 
created  by  the  extinction  of  the  beer  saloon.  Beer  is  essentially 
the  drink  of  the  poorer  people,  but  it  can  never  become  the  common 
drink  unless  it  is  sold  from  the  barrel  by  the  glass  or  pint  and  at  a 
price  within  the  means  of  the  wage-earners. 

It  will  readily  be  perceived  that,  although  not  a  very  effective 
expedient,  this  innovation  was  expressly  designed  to  promote  tem- 
perance. Unfortunately,  it  was  not  permitted  to  pass  without 
severe  criticism.  Its  introduction  at  a  period  when  the  dis- 
pensary system  had  passed  through  its  critical  and  crudely  experi- 
mental stage  and  had  yielded  considerable  profits,  seemed  to  satisfy 
everybody  except  the  prohibitionists.  They  assailed  it  fiercely, 
and  the  Governor,  who  for  reasons  of  his  own  wished  to  avoid  their 
antagonism,  joined  them  in  their  opposition  to  the  beer  dispensary. 
This  led  to  a  controversy  between  the  State  dispensary  authorities 
and  the  Governor,  which,  although  it  threatened  the  stability  of 
beer  dispensaries,  had  a  wholesome  effect  in  the  end.  It  may  be 
permissible  to  reproduce  here  an  official  letter  from  the  heads  of  the 
dispensary  system  in  reply  to  our  inquiry  relative  to  this  contro- 
versy. Its  literal  reproduction  appears  all  the  more  desirable, 
because  it  adds  official  confirmation  to  our  presentation  of  the  case, 


36 

so  far  as  the  temperance  aspect  of  the  subject  is  concerned.     The 
letter  reads  as  follows,  viz.: 

Office  of  State  Board  of  Control  S.  C.  Dispensary,  ) 
Columbia,  S.  C,  Feb.  ii,  1S99.  ) 

G.  Thomanx,  Esq.,  New  York  City. 

Dear  Sir: — The  "beer  privilege"  feature  of  the  dispensary  law  is  de- 
signed to  meet  the  requirements  of  that  portion  of  our  citizenship  who  want, 
and  will  have,  fresh  beer.  Under  the  general  provisions  of  our  dispensary  law, 
the  ordinary  county  or  local  dispenser  is  restricted  to  the  sale  of  liquors  in 
unbroken  packages,  just  as  he  receives  them  from  the  central  or  State  dis- 
pensary, and  hence,  cannot  sell  unsteamed  or  fresh  beer,  but  can  only  sell  what 
is  known  as  steamed  or  export  beer  He  also  sells  all  other  classes  of  liquors. 
The  beer  dispenser  is  exempted  from  these  general  restrictions  and  is  furnished 
fresh  beer  in  casks  by  the  State  Board,  and  allowed  to  bottle  and  keep  it  in 
cold  storage  to  be  sold  by  the  bottle  or  dozen  bottles  to  the  consumer.  He  is 
allowed  to  sell  nothing  else.  We  have  23  such  "privileges"  in  operation  in 
the  State,  and  they  have  had  a  wonderfully  good  effect  in  the  interest  of  temperance. 
The  worst  that  can  be  said  against  the  plan  is,  that  the  profits  of  the  beer 
dispenser  depend  upon  the  amount  of  his  sales.  He  is  required  to  furnish 
his  own  capital,  paying  the  State  a  royalty,  and  of  course,  there  is  an  incentive 
to  encourage  the  sale  and  consumption  of  beer,  but  the  purchaser  is  not 
allowed  to  drink  on  the  premises  and  but  little  harm  comes  of  it.  The  taste 
of  the  beer-drinker  is  as  pronounced  for  beer,  as  against  ardent  spirits,  as  the 
taste  of  some  people  is  in  favor  of  wheat,  as  against  corn  bread.  //  then, 
he  is  denied  fresh  beer,  and  is  driven  to  the  consumption  of  ardent  spirits,  intem- 
perance is  promoted.  The  royalty  or  profit  from  these  23  agencies  during  last 
year  amounted  to  more  than  $50,000,  which  proves  the  demand  for  fresh  beer 
which  we  consider  comparatively  a  temperance  drink.     *     *     * 

The  Governor,  as  you  mention,  has  criticized  the  Board  for  granting 
these  privileges,  we  believe  in  deference  to  the  mistaken  idea  of  some  of  the 
most  rabid  Prohibitionists,  that  they  simply  increase  the  total  sale  of  liquor. 

We  are  respectfully  yours, 

(Signed)    L.  J.   Williams, 
J.   B.  Douthit. 

Under  the  Attorney  General's  construction  of  the  law,  these  beer 
dispensers,  appointed  by  the  County  Boards  of  Control  and  acting 
under  regulations  approved  by  State  authorities,  were  to  be  re- 
garded and  treated  like  all  other  official  dispensers  and  the  beer  sold 
by  them  "must  be  purchased  primarily  by  the  State  Board  of  Con- 
trol." The  establishments  of  the  new  order  therefore  remained 
under  the  full  control  of  the  State  and  were  held  to  be  subject  to  all 
the  provisions  of  the  law  and  the  regulations  governing  dispensaries 
— the  special  privilege  granted  them  consisting  exclusively  of  the 
right  to  bottle  and  sell  beer  under  the  rovalty  svstem. 


37 

Yielding  to  pressure  from  above,  the  State  Board  adopted  the 
following  resolution,  viz.: 

Resolved,  That  all  beer  dispensaries  are  hereby  ordered  closed  and  the 
terms  of  office  of  such  dispensers  are  declared  to  be  vacant ;  this  order  to  be- 
come effective  on  Noveinber  i,  1899. 

Resolved,  further.  That  semi-sterilized  or  family  beer  be  supplied  to  con- 
sumers through  the  regular  county  dispensaries,  and  that  breweries  usually 
seeking  business  with  the  dispensary  are  requested  to  submit  bids  to  the  State 
Board  of  Control  at  the  October  meeting,  proposing  to  supply  such  beer 
bottled  and  in  crates  and  in  such  quantities  as  may  be  necessary  to  be  shipped 
to  various  county  dispensaries  direct,  and  at  such  times  as  may  be  ordered  by 
the  Board. 

And  it  is  further  resolved,  That  the  Board  at  the  October  meeting  desig- 
nate such  dispensaries  as  it  is  deemed  prudent  to  require  to  handle  such  beer, 
and  that  they  be  required  to  handle  such  beer  business  by  November  i . 

Having  established  these  beer  dispensaries  in  the  interest  of 
true  temperance,  the  State  Board  doubtless  concluded  that  the}^  had 
the  right  and  power  to  discontinue  them  in  the  interest  of  political 
expediency ;  but  the  Attorney  General,  having  previously  decided 
that  the  beer  officials  are  to  all  intents  and  purposes  county  dis- 
pensers, now  interposed  another  legal  opinion  to  the  effect  that  these 
officials  cannot  be  removed  without  cause. 

The  ultimate  restoration  of  the  local  beer  dispensaries  upon  an 
absolutely  legal  basis,  but  under  all  the  restrictions  before  enumer- 
ated, permanently  settled  this  phase  of  the  question.  The  system 
has  not  since  then  undergone  any  essential  changes  either  as  to  the 
principles  involved  or  the  executive  details  relative  to  the  practical 
management  of  the  disp'ensary;  save  in  one  particular  and  that  is 
the  price  of  the  liquors.  The  original  rate  of  profit  was  reduced 
repeatedly  so  as  to  meet  more  successfully  the  competition  of  the 
illicit  traffic,  but  this  could  not,  in  the  very  nature  of  things  affect 
malt-liquors,  seeing  that  an  illicit  traffic  in  these  beverages  did  not 
exist.  The  object  was  to  cheapen  whiskey  and  to  increase  profits 
by  increased  sales — certainly  not  a  temperance  measure. 


In  summarizing  the  objects,  the  operation,  and  the  results  of  the 
South  Carolina  law,  it  must  be  repeated  at  the  outset  that  as  a  tem- 
perance measure  the  dispensary  cannot  stand  the  test  of  a  com- 
parison either  with  the  European  alcohol  monopolies  or  with  any 
one  of  the  modern  methods  which  are  based  upon  the  scientific  and 


88 

official  investigations  referred  to  in  the  foregoing  pages.  In  fact, 
it  is  lamentably  defective  in  all  those  essential  principles  which  are 
recognized  throughout  the  civilized  world  as  the  only  effective  means 
of  promoting  temperance.  Even  the  most  fanatical  advocate  of 
total  abstinence  must  admit  that  if  men  will  drink  stimulants  and 
cannot  be  prevented  from  doing  so  either  by  moral  suasion  or  physi- 
cal coercion,  the  cause  of  temperance  will  be  best  subserved  by  any 
rational  system  which,  while  neither  forbidding  nor  unreasonably 
restricting  the  use  of  ardent  spirits,  will  tend  to  popularize  the  use 
of  fermented  beverages  containing  but  a  very  small  percentage  of 
alcohol  and  even  that  small  percentage  of  a  nature  different 
in  every  respect  from    the    alcohol    obtained   by  distillation. 

No  sane  man  will  dispute  any  part  of  this  statement.  The 
popularization  of  beer  and  its  ultimate  substitution  for  ardent 
spirits  as  the  common  drink  of  the  people,  cannot  be  achieved  with- 
out a  distributing  and  dispensing  agency  so  constituted  and  con- 
ducted, under  proper  safeguards,  as  to  render  the  drink  as  cheap 
and  as  easily  accessible  as  possible.  It  is  this  consideration  that 
prompted  the  governments  of  Switzerland,  Sweden  and  Russia  to 
exempt  beer  and  wine  from  the  restrictive  operation  of  the  monopoly 
and  to  encourage  the  sale  of  beer  in  the  only  way  in  which  it  can  be 
popularized,  namely,  by  the  glass  and  pint  through  the  agencies  of 
the  hotel,  the  restaurant,  the  beer-garden,  the  cafe  and  the  saloon. 
The  men  who  drink  a  glass  of  wine  or  beer  with  their  meal  either  at 
the  hotel  or  the  restaurant ;  the  men  who  with  their  wives  and 
children  visit  beer  gardens  to  listen  to  good  music  and  enjoy  the 
pleasure  of  social  intercourse  with  their  neighbors ;  the  wage-earners 
who  congregate  in  beer  saloons  for  amusement  and  recreation ;  the 
men  who  buy  a  pint  of  cool,  fresh,  foaming  beer  for  themselves  and 
their  families  at  the  evening  meal — all  these  are  not  the  men  who 
drink  to  excess  on  any  of  these  occasions,  and  among  them  drunken- 
ness is  a  rare,  an  almost  impossible  occurrence.  To  them  beer  is 
an  indispensable  part  of  their  daily  diet — a  stimulant  it  is  true,  but 
in  no  sense  different  from  tea  or  coffee  (narcotics  both),  so  far  as 
the  character  of  its  use  is  concerned. 

The  Swiss  policy,  already  quoted  in  these  pages,  of  divorcing 
the  traffic  in  fermented  drinks  from  that  in  distilled  liquors  by  plac- 
ing the  latter  under  certain  restrictions  and  securing  to  the  former 
enhanced  facilities  for  expansion,  more  especially  in  the  matter  of 


39 

taxation,  actually  prevails  under  different  forms  in  every  European 
country.  We  may  be  permitted  in  this  connection  to  quote  but  one 
more  official  illustration.  When  the  Belgian  Government  abolished 
the  municipal  taxes  upon  beer,  wine  and  cider,  the  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury  had  this  to  say  about  the  measure:  "By  removing  local 
tax -burdens  from  beer,  wine  and  cider,  the  law  naturally  lowers  the 
price  of  these  beverages  and  increases  their  consumption,  thus  serv- 
ing the  interests  of  public  health  by  substituting  these  healthful 
beverages  for  ardent  spirits."  Until  the  advent  of  uniform  high- 
licenses,  the  same  policy  prevailed  in  our  own  country,  and  even 
since  then  the  real  friends  of  temperance  have  striven  to  bring 
about  the  substitution  here  referred  to. 

But  such  a  substitution  cannot  be  achieved  under  a  system 
that  enhances  the  price  and.  lessens  the  accessibility  of  beer  and 
actually  prevents  its  use  by  the  great  mass  of  the  poorer  people  at  the 
very  places  and  in  the  very  manner  which  the  nature  of  the  drink 
and  the  needs  of  the  drinker  demand.  The  tapster,  not  the  bottler, 
is  the  popularizer  of  beer;  and  the  tapster  is  tabooed  in  South  Caro- 
lina. 

Whatever  good  the  dispensary  system  may  have  wrought  in 
other  respects,  whatever  may  be  its  efficacy  as  a  source  of  revenue, 
it  certainly  is  not  a  temperance  measure  in  that  broader  sense  and 
acceptation  of  the  term  in  which  it  is  used  when  applied  to  the 
European  monopolies  or  to  any  license  system  discriminating  be- 
tween an  effervescent  and  nutritive  beverage  containing  4%  of 
alcohol,  and  a  liquor  containing  50%  of  alcohol.  In  fact,  a  more 
effective  method  of  retarding  the  development  of  brewing  and  dis- 
couraging the  consumption  of  beer,  could  not  have  been  devised. 

It  has  been  shown  that  as  soon  as  the  system  had  been  placed 
upon  a  secure  working  basis,  both  the  legislators  and  the  dispensary 
officials  recognized  this  defect  and  sought  to  remedy  it ;  but  the  cor- 
rective they  applied,  although  not  wholly  ineffective,  must  in  the 
end  prove  but  a  poor  makeshift,  incapable  of  bringing  about  a 
change  in  the  drinking  habits  of  the  people. 

In  spite  of  all  these  slight  concessions,  the  actual  injury  in- 
flicted upon  the  brewing  industry  of  the  State  in  the  impairment  of 
production  has  not  yet  been  repaired,  and  of  course,  there  is  no  pos- 
sibility under  any  circumstances  of  compensating  the  trade  for 
opportunities  of  development  lost  during  a  period  of  marvelous  prog- 


40        , 

ress  in  all  other  beer-producing  States.     A  few  figures  will  serve  to 
illustrate  this  statement. 

In  1892  South  Carolina  had  two  breweries  with  an  aggregate 
annual  output  of  1 2 ,000  barrels.  In  1 904  there  was  but  one  brewery 
in  the  State  and  its  production  amounted  to  about  3,132  barrels. 
During  this  period  of  twelve  years  the  average  increase  in  the  pro- 
duction of  malt-liquors  throughout  the  country  amounted  to  50%, 
of  which,  had  it  not  been  for  the  dispensary  system,  the  South  Caro- 
lina bre\yers  would  have  had  their  share.  Instead  then  of  a  de- 
crease of  9,000  barrels,  there  would  have  been  an  increase  of  6,000 
barrels,  or  in  other  words  an  annual  output  of  18,000  barrels.  Re- 
liable and  very  conservative  estimates  place  the  total  quantity  of 
beer  shipped  into  South  Carolina  in  1892  at  80,000  barrels.  The 
beer-purchases  of  the  Dispensary  Commissioner  up  to  1895  averaged 
less  than  2,000  barrels  per  year.  Although  since  then  matters  have 
undergone  a  change  for  the  better,  the  disparity  between  the  in- 
crease in  the  sales  of  beer  and  of  whiskey  is  very  marked  as  com- 
pared with  what  would  have  been  the  relative  proportion  of 
increases,  if  beer  had  not  been  included  in  the  system.  The  fol- 
lowing table  showing  the  value  of  the  State's  sales  of  beer  and 
whiskey  needs  no  commentary ;  it  tells  its  own  tale  more  eloquently 
than  words  could  do  : 

Beer.  Whiskey. 

1899 $89,061.95 $1,424,715.82 

1900 147,233.15 1,608,691.07 

1901 127.455-50 1,875,858.43 

1902 183,515.50 1,971,755.21 

1-903 208,905.57.., 2,280,989.22 

1904 234,384.53 2,778,018.06 

This  table  shows  that  even  under  the  comparatively  favorable 
conditions  existing  in  1904,  the  consumption  of  beer  in  South 
Carolina  amounted  to  only  about  one-fourth  of  the  quantity  con- 
sumed in   1892. 

People  living  in  a  climate  like  that  of  South  Carolina  are  iiot 
naturally  drinkers  of  fiery  spirits.  According  to  what  is  now  uni- 
versally recognized  as  a  cosmic  law — invariable  in  its  manifestations 
save  where  man's  folly  perverts  natural  inclinations — they  should 


41 

be  drinkers  of  fermented  beverages  and  pre-eminently  temperate  in 
their  drinking  habits.  In  early  Colonial  days  commercial  inter- 
course with  the  West  Indies  made  rum  a  principal  article  of  barter, 
and  rural  distillation,  fostered  by  laws  which  conceded  to  every 
planter  the  right  to  "sell  liquors  in  any  quantities  to  his  laborers 
and  neighbors,"  only  tended  to  swell  the  volume  of  the  rum  trafhc. 
It  was  in  this  way  that  South  Carolinians  became  addicted  to  the 
copious  use  of  spirits.  Even  under  the  most  favorable  conditions 
it  must  prove  a  difficult  task  to  wean  people  from  a  habit  so  deeply 
and  firmly  rooted,  and  under  a  system  like  the  dispensary  it  becomes 
impossible.  This  much  at  least  must  be  admitted  even  by  the 
dispensary  enthusiast;  in  fact,  in  the  face  of  the  data  here  presented 
it  cannot  be  denied. 

Concerning  the  claim  that  the  dispensary  system  has  decreased 
the  consumption  of  ardent  spirits,  it  has  been  demonstrated  that 
anything  like  statistical  evidence  in  support  of  it  cannot  be  obtained 
and  that  there  are  no  means  of  ascertaining  the  quantity  of  spirits 
sold  and  consumed  in  violation  of  the  law.  That  the  illicit  sale  still 
prevails  to  a  considerable  extent,  has  again  and  very  recently  been 
admitted  by  the  Governor  of  the  State,  who  in  his  message  of  1905 
states  that  the  enforcement  of  the  law  "involves  a  problem  of  cease- 
less and  never-ending  responsibilities  and  anxieties."  He  mentions 
a  number  of  methods  by  which  the  law  is  successfully  violated  and 
emphasizes  the  impossibility  of  enforcing  the  law  in  Charleston,  the 
principal  harbor  and  commercial  and  industrial  centre  of  the  State. 
Neither  he  nor  any  other  State  or  Federal  officer  can  determine  the 
quantities  of  spirits  sold  illicitly,  and  it  therefore  follows  that  the 
attempt  to  prove  inf erentially  a  diminution  of  intemperance  as  a  re- 
sult of  an  alleged  decrease  in  the  illicit,  and  an  enormous  increase  in 
the  lawful,  sales  is  a  singularly  infelicitous  way  of  proving  that  the 
dispensary  stands  for  sobriety.  It  is  useless  to  again  demonstrate 
the_  incongruity  of  the  reasoning  by  which  it  is  sought  to  substantiate 
this  claim.     (See  page  28.) 

Even  if  the  official  assumption  that  an  increase  in  the  dispen- 
sary's sales  necessarily  implies  a  corresponding  shrinkage  of  the 
illicit  traffic,  were  correct,  it  would  not  prove  that  the  general  con- 
sumption has  decreased.  It  would  show  that  a  part  of  the  demand 
for  liquors  formerly  supplied  by  the  "  blind  tiger  "  is  now  filled  by  the 
State.     It  would  simply  indicate  a  change  in  the  channel  through 


42 

which  the  supply  reaches  the  consumer  and  not  at  all  a  diminution 
of  the  supply  itself.  It  would  prove  that  in  its  ceaseless  competition 
with  the  illicit  traffic,  the  dispensary  has  been  successful  to  the  ex- 
tent of  its  increased  sales.  That  is  all.  The  total  quantity  con- 
sumed would  not  be  affected  either  one  way  or  the  other. 

At  this  point  another  one  of  the  avowed  objects  of  the  system 
demands  attention.  It  appears  to  be  officially  assumed — as  must 
be  inferred  from  various  statements  contained  in  the  dispensary 
reports — that  this  competition  with  the  illicit  traffic  derives  its  most 
potent  element  of  success  from  that  clause  of  the  law  which  provides 
that  the  dispensary  liquors  must  be  tested  as  to  their  purity.  Under 
normal  conditions,  this  guarantee  of  purity  should  indeed  secure  to 
the  State  a  great  advantage  over  the  unlawful  seller  and  particularly 
over  those  who  deal  in  the  product  of  the  primitive  rural  still.  It 
doubtless  has  this  effect  to  some  extent,  but  it  is  offset  by  the  higher 
prices  charged  by  the  dispensary.  This  applies  more  particularly 
to  the  cheaper  grades  of  whiskey  which  constitute  the  bulk  of  the 
official  supply.* 

Besides,  the  method  of  securing  pure  liquors  does  not  possess 
any  virtue  which  could  inspire  greater  confidence  in  the  official 
guarantee  than  is  ordinarily  reposed  in  the  name  or  trademark  of  the 
average  distiller  who  conducts  his  affairs  upon  business  principles. 
Its  effectiveness  depends  entirely  upon  the  integrity  of  a  few  of- 
ficials and  it  offers  no  safeguards  against  the  many  alluring  tempta- 
tions to  which  the  competition  among  distillers  necessarily  exposes 
this  integrity.  Charges  of  corruption,  peculation,  collusion  be- 
tween officials  and  supplymen  have  always  been  quite  numerous, 
and  in  many  instances  their  substantiation  appears  to  have  been  an 
easy  matter.  Governor  Heyward  devotes  a  considerable  part  of 
his  recent  message  (January  1905)  to  the  subject  of  purchases  and 
among  other  things  recommends  as  a  means  of  disarming  criticism 
that  the  officers  making  purchases  should  be  compelled  to  require 
the  firms  contracted  with,  "to  guarantee  the  sale  of  such  goods 
as  may  be  ordered  and  that  all  advertisements  for  bulk  goods 
should  be  placed  strictly  and  absolutely  upon  a  competitive  basis." 

*  The  following  is  an  extract  from  the  official  report  of  1894:  "The 
demand  for  the  cheaper  grade  of  liquors  necessitated  the  placing  upon  the 
market  of  our  80%  rye,  corn  and  bourbon.  These  goods  have  become  a 
formidable  opponent  of  the  illicit  whiskey  vendors,  because  they  are  purer 
and  better  at  popular  prices." 


43 

The  practices  which  the  absence  of  such  common  safeguards  must 
encourage  do  not  require  elaborate  elucidation. 

The  methods  pursued  under  the  European  alcohol  monopolies 
afford  an  absolute  guarantee  of  purity,  because  the  State  subjects  all 
potable  spirits,  no  matter  of  what  materials  they  may  be  made,  to  a 
process  of  rectification  so  rigid  and  thorough  as  to  remove  every  par- 
ticle of  fusel-oil — a  deadly  but  easily  eliminable  constituent  of  spirits. 

In  spite  of  its  manifest  defects,  the  South  Carolina  method  for 
securing  pure  liquors  probably  serves  an  excellent  purpose  in  all 
cases  where  the  dispensary's  liquors  take  the  place  of  the  moon- 
shiner's product,  and  to  that  extent  the  system  may  have  lessened 
the  evils  of  alcoholism.  But  what  this  amounts  to,  if  it  amount  to 
anything,  it  is  impossible  to  determine ;  and  any  unbiased  student 
of  the  question  will  admit  that  such  meagre  results — easily  obtain- 
able by  ordinary  means — are  not  worth  the  terrible  sacrifices  which 
the  system  has  imposed  upon  the  people. 

An  enumeration  of  these  sacrifices  in  the  form  of  a  narrative 
would  exceed  the  bounds  within  which  it  is  desired  to  confine  this 
essay;  besides  to  those  who  have  attentively  read  the  preceding 
pages,  such  a  recital  would  appear  superfluous. 

Without  exaggeration  it  may  be  said  that,  excepting  its  profit- 
making  feature,  the  dispensary  system  accomplished  the  very 
opposite  of  the  objects  which  its  advocates  pretended  to  aim  at. 
Ostensibly  introduced  as  a  promoter  of  public  morality,  it  produced 
a  degree  of  demoralization  unequalled  in  the  history  of  any  modern 
State.  Designed  to  protect  law  and  order,  it  called  forth  a  pro- 
found contempt  for  the  law  and  a  spirit  of  lawlessness  which — as 
may  be  seen  from  Governor  Heyward's  latest  message — manifests 
itself  in  other  directions  and  in  more  vital  matters  than  the  mere 
violation  of  a  liquor  law.  Paraded  as  the  legal  embodiment  of  the 
will  of  the  people,  it  was  used  to  overthrow  municipal  independence, 
to  destroy  home-rule,  to  build  up  a  vast  political  machine  for 
partisan  purposes;  to  call  into  existence  a  semi-military  organiza- 
tion clothed  with  functions  and  powers  repugnant  to  American 
ideas  of  communal  liberty  and  subversive  of  the  natural  rights  of 
the  individual.  It  caused  bloodshed;  provoked  a  popular  uprising 
which  the  State  was  barely  able  to  suppress;  came  perilously  near 
precipitating  a  civil  war ;  favored  and  promoted  official  corruption ; 
lowered  the  dignity  of  the  commonwealth ;  degraded  the  Executive 


u 

to  the  level  of  an  anxious  competitor  of  the  "blind-tiger,"  eager  to 
enter  into  humiliating  compromises  with  the  lawless  and,  if  need  be, 
to  palliate  and  condone  crime  for  the  sake  of  profit. 

South  Carolinians  are  neither  better  nor  w^orse  than  the  people 
of  any  other  State  of  our  Union;  and  it  is  safe  to  say  that  in  any 
other  State  the  same  conditions  would  have  produced  the  same 
spirit  of  lawlessness  which  Governor  Hey  ward  deprecates  so  strongly 
in  his  latest  message.  When  Governor  Tillman,  a  man  of  brilliant 
intellect,  a  born  leader  of  men,  the  idol  of  his  party,  set  at  naught 
the  authority  of  the  Federal  Courts;  when  he  openly  defied  the 
highest  court  of  the  State  and  nullified  its  mandates ;  when  his  con- 
stabulary shot  down  the  people  who  tried  to  obey  the  orders  of 
minor  courts;  when  he  used  his  extraordinary  power  as  a  party 
leader  to  place  upon  the  Supreme  Court  bench  a  man  pledged  in 
advance  to  render  judgment  at  the  dictates  of  partisans;  when  he 
threatened  trial  justices  with  removal  from  office  unless  they  stuffed 
jury-boxes — he  set  an  example  of  lawlessness  that  could  not  fail 
to  create  a  profound  and  lasting  impression  upon  the  public  mind. 

These  are  the  actual  effects  by  which  the  system  must  be 
judged,  until  the  Federal  statistics  of  alcoholism,  such  as  the  Census 
of  1 910  will  contain,  shall  enable  the  investigator  to  base  his  judg- 
ment upon  data  that  do  not  lend  themselves  as  readily  to  fanciful 
interpretations  and  constructions  as  the  so-called  statistical  exhibits 
reviewed  in  the  foregoing  pages. 

One  unassailable  and  incontrovertible  fact  stands  out  boldly, 
however,  and  does  not  require  such  statistical  corroboration,  and 
that  is  that  the  svstem,  no  matter  what  actual  or  potential  virtue 
it  may  possess  as  a  provider  of  cheaper  and  purer  whiskey,  lacks  the 
principal  characteristic  of  a  real  and  effective  temperance  measure, 
such  as  the  Swiss  Monopoly  is  universally  conceded  to  be,  because 
it  includes  vinous  and  malt-liquors  in  its  restrictive  operations. 
Such  concessions  as  have  been  mentioned  here  may  and  probably 
do  mitigate  the  evil  effects  of  this  indiscriminate  method,  but  they 
cannot  eradicate  them,  and  until  that  is  done,  the  dispensary  does 
not  deserve  to  be  classed,  as  a  temperance  measure,  either  with  the 
European  alcohol  monopolies  or  with  any  rational  license-system 
which  discriminates  between  a  drink  containing  4%  and  a  liqiior 
containing  50%  of  alcohol.  Viewed  in  this  light  it  is,  in  fact, 
worse  than  the  worst  high  license  system. 


I 


UNIVERSITY  OF  N  C   AT  CHAPFL  m;  i 


